Hi! I’m Tim O’Neal I’m the director of employee benefits and wellness at Meredith Corporation.
ARAG was selected to be part of the benefits package at Meredith – we really wanted to offer some new benefits, we wanted to offer value-added benefits, we knew that this was an area that employees had wanted, had asked for, for a long time.
We really knew that ARAG was a reputable provider. We really appreciate the variety of different types of coverage for employees and a variety of scenarios in which the coverage will cover and so for us those are very important selling points in selecting the benefit.
ARAG is a valuable and affordable part of the overall benefit package for Meredith. It’s extremely affordable for employees and their families. Barely notice it on your paycheck whatsoever. I personally am also a participant and for us it’s really nice knowing that, as a family, we have the coverage that we need there when we need it so it’s extremely affordable both as an employer and as an administrator. It’s a nice benefit to offer our employees and families and personally as a participant we’re glad we have it.
Meredith really wants to focus on health and well-being. We think that our employees and their families are our most valuable resource. The goal of the wellness program at Meredith is to live longer, happier, and healthier lives leading to an enjoyable retirement. We know that good physical health is important. We know good financial health is important. We certainly want to provide resources that can alleviate stress and ARAG as part of our benefit package really fits in well with that overall philosophy.
Work life balance is really important and an ARAG legal plan really helps balance that out for employees and families. We want to make sure that we can provide resources that will help alleviate stress especially as it could pertain to legal matters is very reassuring for employees and families when they know they have the coverage they need in these areas. That way they can focus on taking care of those types of things and making sure that they have the appropriate resources available so they don’t have to stress about it during the work day.
In terms of presenteeism and employees being at work and being distracted, a lot of times we don’t know what may be going on in their personal life outside of work and that’s ok, but we definitely want to prove resources that are available to help them cope with those things and establish strategies ARAG fits perfecly into our benefits package to address that issue.
ARAG has made the administrative process super easy. From a benefits perspective we’ve had no issues. Our representatives have been fantastic. It’s a great benefit that is very positively received by our workforce and from an administrator’s standpoint we’ve had no issues. It’s been great and we’re glad and really value our partnership.
For other employers who are thinking about offering the ARAG legal benefit, it’s extremely affordable for employees. From an administrator standpoint they’ve been great to work with, the benefit covers a wide variety of areas and if you’re looking to add value to your benefits package without dramatically increasing the cost of benefits to your company, ARAG’s a great way to go.
