How Cost Cutting and Investing in Employees Can Co-Exist at Your Organization

Health care trends are on the rise during a time when the health and wellbeing of employees is more important than ever. And the combination of low affordability of care for a growing portion of employees and the challenge of attracting and retaining workers makes employers hesitate to pass cost increases on to employees.

Meet the Presenters

Janet Faircloth is Senior Vice President, Innovation and Integrated Solutions at Aon.  Faircloth works with Aon and industry experts across the globe to identify, design and deploy high-value advisory solutions, services and capabilities to help employers solve their most pressing health, wellbeing and benefits challenges. She is passionate about making healthcare easier and more equitable, accessible and affordable for employers and their employees and families and has led the development of solutions and market expertise in areas such as virtual care, provider guidance platforms and healthcare navigation solutions. Faircloth has 30 years of health care and benefits consulting experience, helping clients create innovative solutions through the design, management, administration and financing of their employee benefits programs.

Kathy Bernhardt is the Vice President, Payroll, Benefits, HR Technology/Analytics and HR Administration for Macy’s, Inc. Macy’s Inc. is a modern department store and through their celebrated nameplates Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, help their customers express their unique style and celebrate special moments both big and small, wherever and however they shop. Macy’s employs over 90,000 colleagues in 720 locations and is headquartered in New York, New York. In her role, she leads the strategy and design of colleague benefits, in addition to administration of payroll, benefits, colleague support, HR technology and HR reporting & analytics.

Janet Lucas-Taylor is Senior Director Employee Benefits at Northwestern Mutual. Lucas-Taylor is a benefits professional with broad-based knowledge and is an innovator and thought leader in health care with a strong commitment to creating value in employee benefits. She is particularly passionate about increasing value for health care consumers by changing how health care is delivered and paid for. She serves on the Leapfrog Group Board of Directors, National Purchaser Leadership Council for the National Alliance and as a member of the Low Value Taskforce a cross functional group of providers, employers and healthcare data experts focused on reducing low value care in the state of Wisconsin. Additionally, Lucas-Taylor serves on the Executive Steering Committee for the Business Health Care Group (BHCG), the employer coalition in Eastern Wisconsin. As part of BHCG, she has driven the offering of a high-performance health plan where physicians are curated based on quality and efficiency for Northwestern Mutual employees and the Wisconsin market. Prior to her current role, Lucas-Taylor worked as a Health and Group Benefits consultant partnering with employers on their benefits and wellbeing strategies.