BCBS North Carolina

Winning Years: 2011, 2009, 2008
Industry: Insurance
Location: Durham, N.C.
Website: www.bcbsnc.com

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) Golden Blues Employee Network focuses on the needs of employees over the age of 50. The network offers networking opportunities, targeted seminars on topics such as retirement and eldercare issues, professional development events, and community service activities all targeted towards employees age 50 and over.

See Also: How the 2011 Best Employers winners were selected.

Additional Policies and Practices:

Recruiting: BCBSNC targets mature workers and retirees by advertising open positions on Simplyhired50+.com, Corporategray.com and Retirementjobs.com.

Workplace Culture / Continued Opportunities: Employees working 20 or more hours per week are offered the following learning and development programs: tuition reimbursement, in-house classroom training, online training and certification classes. Blue University, the company's corporate university, offers leadership and role-based curricula as well as an award-winning mentoring program.

Based on employee feedback from opinion surveys, the following programs have been implemented: added in-home back-up eldercare and child care benefits, added flexible work options such as teleworking (full-time work from home), telecommuting (part-time work from home), and mobile working, offer health screenings and health risk assessments, expanded onsite clinics, and offer educational seminars on financial and dependent care topics.

Employees have opportunities to gain new experiences by working on temporary assignments in other departments and on team projects. BCBSNC has made numerous worksite accommodations to meet the needs of an employee who uses a wheelchair.  
 
Benefits/Health: Employees working 20 or more hours per week receive individual and family medical coverage, individual and family prescription drug coverage, individual and family vision and dental insurance, as well as short- and long-term disability.

Health benefits for retirees include individual and spouse medical and drug coverage, individual and spouse vision and dental coverage, as well as individual life insurance or other death benefit coverage. New hires are eligible for the above benefits upon retirement except for the individual life insurance or other death benefit coverage.

Flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) are available to assist in covering out-of-pocket health care costs.

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