Leadership

Amid an increasingly complex leave administration landscape, New York Life Group Benefits Solutions has expanded its absence management solution to provide an array of holistic leave management services via a streamlined platform.

We sat down with Meghan Shea, Head of Strategy, Product, and Marketing for New York Life Group Benefit Solutions to learn more.

Can you tell us about New York Life Absence Assist℠?

New York Life Absence Assist℠ combines our full suite of absence solutions – disability, leave and ADA administration – with enhanced digital and technological capabilities to provide more support for current and emerging regulatory and company-specific leaves.  New York Life Absence Assist℠ features a single absence platform that can integrate with employer systems and includes reporting that shows real-time decisions, return-to-work dates and a detailed activity tracker for all absence types. Employees are also matched with a single absence manager to connect the dots across all applicable absences.

New York Life Absence Assist℠ also features connectivity to our partners, Wellthy¹ and Empathy², which offer caregiving and bereavement resources, respectively, as well as access to Vocational Coaches who leverage clinical resources to develop personalized plans that aid recovery and improve return-to-work outcomes. These Coaches are also certified to offer Mental Health First Aid® (MHFA)³ training, which provides the tools needed to respond when a mental health concern occurs. MHFA can help reduce stigma around mental health as well as improve the wellbeing and productivity of clients’ workforce. We know that access to mental health resources is key for employees, too. Our new value add offerings program⁴ offers three face-to-face counseling sessions with certified clinicians as well as up to five telehealth resiliency coaching sessions from a certified counselor.

Finally, we know the leave landscape is becoming increasingly complex. Historically, employers needed to navigate only a handful of leave programs, but today they are navigating an ever-increasing combination of federal, state, municipal and company-specific leaves that vary from state-to-state. To help address this challenge, we’re bringing forward fully insured Paid Family Medical Leave capabilities⁵, broader company leave support, and an enhanced ADA product offering. Our team of legal and compliance experts actively monitor legislative proposals and actions to help employers and producers stay ahead of the legislative curve. We also provide a digital Absence Regulatory Guide for timely information on state and federal laws that may affect absence administration.

Why did New York Life Group Benefits Solutions design this solution?

While elevating our technology and bringing all our absence products onto a single platform are important, what’s truly exciting about New York Life Absence Assist℠ is how it enables us to continue to put our clients and their employees at the heart of all we do. For example, the improvements and flexibility in communication preferences, personalized reporting capabilities, educational tools, and expanded offerings connect our customers with support and guidance in the moments that matter and help create a more human-centered experience for both our customers and their employees.

We know that our clients want a partner that is easy to do business with and dedicated to helping them build meaningful connections with their employees. As a result, we’re committed to ensuring our resources are deployed to provide the service our clients deserve – including improved decision times, data sharing, and referrals to programs that look at the whole person. New York Life Absence Assist℠ is a different way of approaching absence management that enables our clients and customers to self-serve where they want to and access human support for more complex needs.

How do you anticipate employers and employees benefitting from New York Life Absence Assist℠

We know that employers are grappling with a new landscape when it comes to work. Despite continually shifting terrain around where work happens and how it fits into employees lives outside of the workplace, employers’ goals to build and retain a productive and engaged workforce haven’t changed. As a result, employers need partners that act as an extension of their Human Resources teams and solutions, like New York Life Absence Assist℠ that improve the overall leave experience to demonstrate to their employees that they care and that they are there when employees need it most.

How Does New York Life Absence Assist℠ fit into the broader strategy for New York Life Group Benefit Solutions?

At New York Life Group Benefit Solutions, we’re committed to putting benefits to work for people. We do that through caring guidance and comprehensive solutions that deliver financial security and peace of mind for our clients and their employees. New York Life Absence Assist℠ is a critical part of our portfolio and we’re confident that this solution – along with future components we expect to develop – can meet the absence needs of clients and their workforce, today and in the future.

New York Life Group Benefit Solutions products and services are provided by Life Insurance Company of North America and New York Life Group Insurance Company of NY, subsidiaries of New York Life Insurance Company. Life Insurance Company of North America is not authorized in NY and does not conduct business in NY. Policy forms: Disability -TL-004700 et al.

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