Ochsner Health System

Winning Years: 2011, 2007, 2006, 2005
Industry: Hospitals/Healthcare
Location: New Orleans
Website: www.ochsner.org

Ochsner stays connected to its retired population by hosting events such as financial planning meetings, an annual open forum for medical plan participants and an annual retired physician's luncheon. In addition, retirees are included in numerous philanthropic events such as Founders Week and the Ochsner Run. Ochsner's database system, Alive Audit, keeps track of retirees and their benefits and also protects their plan assets.

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

Additional Policies and Practices:

Recruiting: Ochsner uses senior placement agencies to recruit mature workers and retirees. In addition, Ochsner posts jobs on websites such as 2Young2Retire.com, 55-Alive.com, afterlivingfifty.com, aginghipsters.com, babyboomerlifeboat.com, babyboomer-magazine.com and boomernet.com. Ochsner also partners with Louisiana Works, a state agency that provides staffing services for retired workers.

Workplace Culture/Continued Opportunities: Employees are offered the following learning and development programs: tuition reimbursement, certification classes, in-house classroom training and online training. Employees must work at least 8 hours per week to qualify for the tuition reimbursement benefit.

Long-service anniversaries are celebrated with gifts, announcements, parties and awards.

Ochsner employees indicated they prefer both face-to-face and online modes of training, so an expansive menu of courses within both of those modalities was created.

"Managing the Generation Frustration" was developed and launched to facilitate discussions between older and younger workers about the unique opportunities and challenges of the multi-generational workplace.

Additionally, courses such as "Maximizing Your Performance Evaluation" and "Adapting Communication Styles" have been launched as interactive online courses.

Employees have opportunities to gain new experiences by working on temporary assignments in other departments, job shadowing, mentoring, working on team projects, and by participating in formal job rotation programs and stretch assignments, which develop skills in areas of interest.

Ochsner offers a Transitional Duty Program to assist injured employees with temporary restrictions and various technology is provided so employees with unique needs can work remotely. In addition, larger monitors with settings to enlarge font sizes are available to visually impaired employees and Ochsner purchases ergonomic, elevated chairs to aid mature employees with knee and leg conditions.
    
Benefits/Health: Employees working 4 or more hours per week receive individual and family medical and prescription drug coverage, and individual and family dental insurance. Short- and long-term disability is offered to employees working 20 or more hours per week.

Retirees receive individual and spouse medical and prescription drug coverage and these health benefits are offered to new hires upon retirement.

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

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