Dave is now extorting $100 from you if you do not enrolled in Castlight. Also, HON is now covering 0% of your dental insurance. Just another reason to leave and yet another reason to not even bother coming to HON in the 1st place. It keeps getting worse and worse each year. Thus is 100% true, I just got the email from CORPHoneywellUSbenefits. "Benefits" haha what a joke, just like this company. So, enjoy your newest form of pay reduction everyone!
25 replies (most recent on top)
How do these changes effect persons with COBRA?
The ironic thing is that HONEYWELL and COTE's globalization stuff is ruining some people's biometrics! For a decade now of a) telecons with India at night b) telecons at 5 AM with India and staff meetings at 6 AM--how is one to get adequate sleep when sleep is now shown to affect blood pressure and weight? Speaking of weight, being chained to a chair and a wired headset all day does nothing for weight. I used to walk well over 10K steps a day just going between conference rooms. Now an average day is 2K steps and then I need to workout for over an hour at night, this subtracting more from my sleep time. And then there is mandatory and implied mandatory overtime.
Dave Cote, I suspect you get enough sleep at night. And I'll also bet you'll never ever show us your biometrics. Like Trump taxes!
Do you know what kind of new hoops we have to jump through in order to get the benefits next year?
My guess is completely drop the medical and ask us to sign up to Obama care. Hon may give us a small credit for us to go for Obama.
Actually, your own physician can furnish the data that comprises the biometrics (weight, waist circumference, blood work, etc.) or you can go go to a separate lab (Sonora Quest here in AZ I believe). If soneone gas high cholesterol, is overweight, etc. the " improve biometrics" requirement encourages one to improve their health status.
It is sad that dental benefits will no longer be covered. Good dental care is important and the fact get the company is paying zero for dental insurance is disappointing.
Having trouble swallowing "improved biometrics" or else you get a surcharge. The biometrics are handled thru an independent company. Seems like a breach of privacy. This seems like a law suit waiting to happen.
Well, looks like cotex is trying to squeeze every last drop out of the employees on his way out before handing the keys to dairyass of the train wreck that is Honeywell.
At some point Wall Street needs to start asking about how they are going to retain quality employees when they are beating them like a dollar mule. Right now employees are just a line on a spreadsheet that looks like a giant cost item (which needs to be reduced!!!) rather than an asset that needs to have investment.
Or, ransack the value of the company turning it into the shell of what it once was. Greed is good.
The thing is "Profit"! Yes, its all good BUT, its bad when- profit- is the bottom line and nothing else is in the circle.
#1 American worker problem and John Q Public in the first place..... Not taking care of each other as a people/ country in the first place! The country was founded on the top down strategy keeping this in mind...we "ALL" are further down the road as a country and at what I may say could be "The End Of A Era" well a couple of hundred years to be exact. Case and point :
There is nothing wrong with a company trying to contain cost and leverage.. the problem is balancing , initially (1600 -2016)circa using resources be it people, natural resources etc.... The good ole US had it all.
Then as fools do! The so called leadership did not manage the citizenries ability to gain access to resources equally. As time marched on therefore establishing a class hierarchical society and at present this "Class Society" is uneven albeit education, natural resources , etc, and choice to have a wide choice of possibilities for a individuals' destiny . Therefore the pie has shrank down to a few employment opportunities whereby the few companies left in the mix of employers cannot bare the weight of the outliers. (US)
Some of us still want to "do our own thing", but things are controlled by a few and the rest of the folks, the ones that contribute to the economy by their labor are left to deal with the fall out. LISTENING?
The only way I see..of the USA recovering from the folly is to reboot..not make war but reboot the efforts..globalization on the face of it will not work. Trade -will. Educate !!! The population or Die!
But no one is listening........ going forward prepare for a bumpy ride!!
Honeywell: always the stick, never the carrot.
While I do hate the big brother aspect of the "must improve Biometrics" requirement, the hopeful outcome of reducing weight, cholesterol, etc. and getting healthier if even a little bit year by year is a good thing for people. I would bet it will spur many people to make changes that will improve their health or at least seek support for trying to do so. And people that choose not to then choose to pay a surcharge.
As I read up on preparing for retirement down the road, I notice more and more articles and experts say one of the best things you can do as you age is to do all you can to be as healthy as you can be to reduce health costs and enjoy your senior years.
I have gotten the biometric info for the past few years and honestly done nothing to make small improvements to improve cholesterol and weight which are not really out of control but not what i would like them to be....now i will probably get a bit more serious about it! (That and the fact that my few extra pounds are starting to affect my knees!)
The attachments in the email explained that dental is going to 0% and the employees will be paying 100% of it.
Blue Cross employees must now improve their Biometric results each year or face a surcharge. I would imagine it won't be too long before that is the HON std.
It died t gave anything about stopping dental coverage but changed including cost. That occurs every year. News is medical will increase by about 6% but nothing in email
Nothing new here folks move along.
Information on Castlight:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-big-data-app-that-predicts-employees-health/
by Aimee Picchi/Moneywatch/ February 18, 2016 1:56pm
The "big data" app that predicts employees' health
Some employers are turning to data -- lots of it -- to help them reduce their costs of providing employees with health insurance. But some experts worry that such technology could prove intrusive, allowing companies to pry into workers' medical history.
One corporate giant using "big data" for health purposes is Walmart (WMT), the world's largest retailer. It is an early customer of Castlight Health (CSLT), whose app collects medical data on workers and then nudges them with information that could help them make the best care decisions.
In one example, the app tracks female employees who have stopped filling their birth control prescriptions, and then matches that information with a woman's age. The app then sends them messages about how to find an OB/GYN to help them with prenatal care.
If that seems invasive, you're not alone -- the app has raised ethical concerns about how employers might use that information. Castlight says that personal data about individual workers isn't relayed to employers, which guards against managers learning who might be at risk for diabetes or who is thinking about having a child, among other scenarios.
"We present them the number of people in that segment," said Alka Tandon, the lead product manager on the Castlight product. "We'll tell them 200 employees across the organization are considering surgery, but they can't drill down and say it was Jane Smith."
That might reassure some, but others aren't convinced. University of Maryland law professor Frank Pasquale tells The Wall Street Journal that such programs carry "enormous potential risks" for exposing personal health data to companies.
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), employers aren't allowed to access a worker's personal medical information. But there's more leeway when it comes to data mining, aggregating information and tapping data that doesn't personally identify a worker.
Meanwhile, the risk of workers being discriminated against on the job due to medical issues or pregnancy remains all too real, statistics show. In 2013, alleged pregnancy discrimination prompted more than 5,000 complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And pregnancy discrimination charges are increasing, with the number of allegations rising by about one-third during the past decade, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.
Such concerns aren't stopping a growing number of employers from tracking their workers' health, offering Fitbits or standing desks. One group is urging companies to report statistics about their employees' health as another financial metric that shareholders can judge them by, on the theory that a fitter workforce is a stronger one.
Castlight's Tandon said that workers can opt out of the program, although she didn't have data on the share of employees who have done so. The early results of the program, which is only three months old, have shown that workers are using their health plans more effectively, she added.
As for the possibility that the the company's software, which is available on an app and on Castlight's website, might strike workers as creepy, Tandon said she "understands the concern." She added that the company tests its messages before rolling them out, to make sure that they won't offend or rub workers the wrong way.
"We built the product with those concerns in mind," she said. "We made sure the employer doesn't have access to personal employee information."
© 2016 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
Is anybody surprised this is happening?
Anyone want to guess when the 401k match disappears? If it wasnt forced into HON for 2 years, I'd imagine it'd be gone already.
Hon wants all employees have weak teeth so they eat less and loose weight. So they can save on medical insurance.
Castlight is a company who tries to talk you out of high dollar medical procedures like surgeries. You have to talk to them 1st or HON won't pay anything. It's a scheme to save HON money by convincing people to put off pricy medical procedures.
For those of us not in the know, what is Castlight?
It's true, I am a manager and received the same email.
For those who don't believe me, here is the body of the email.
Dear Colleague:
Important information about Honeywell’s 2017 U.S. health care benefits will be provided to employees this week. An email will be sent to eligible employees to preview what’s changing for 2017, including requirements to avoid a $100 penalty by registering with Castlight and a telehealth provider, as well as changes to costs and coverage options for dental benefits.
We also will remind employees and / or covered spouses to complete a biometric screening by October 15.
In preparation, please review the attached documents, including the upcoming email to employees, supporting information about changes, and FAQs. One Stop will only provide detailed information to employees when U.S. Annual Enrollment begins on October 24.
I promise it's 100% true. I received the email today. The subject is this:
Manager advance notice: US healthcare and annual enrollment.
This was only sent to managers today. The rest of the employees will find out this week I guess.
It's true. Just wait a day or two and you'll find out it's true
Me too.
The info on this board are becoming very inaccurate lately.
It used to be a good place to get facts
This board is no longer to vent. All this is just office gossip and bull. I'll believe it when I actually see it, or if you can provide proof.
Is this coming in a communication from HR?
Hard to believe we've gone so far down as a major corporation. I wonder if other large companies are going the same path.
Thus puts greed at a whole new level and placed it in the backs of the employees.
It's no wonder the good ones are all leaving.
I guess I need to work at Walmart if I want dental coverage. Dave, you should be ashamed of yourself.