Tasked With a Decision
Management

Introduction In today’s world a common decision amongst businesses is whether or not to offer health insurance and if so, what will it include? In order for anyone to come to a decision on this important issue one must use the decision making process. This process involves six steps and can sometimes be quick or it may take a while to come to a final decision. Either way you can be sure that management has thought about it all when and done there research when that decision is made.
The Process
The moment a major issue arises in a company most decisions aren’t made in ten minutes. When issues can affect the entire organization it is important to follow a process and really think it through before making that final decision. In the instance of discussing health insurance, a lot of information needs to be gathered and discussed before choosing which way to go.
Recognize the Need for a Decision To paint the picture let’s say that a company has had a bad year and they need to make cuts in their budget. One decision that has come across the manager’s desk is whether or not to continue offering health insurance to its employees. “Employers are more likely to offer insurance when competitors in the labor market do so” (Long & Marquis, 2001, p940). Dropping health insurance could possibly affect the amount of workers that stay at this company. What else could this company do to possible just lessen the bill without losing employees?

Generate Alternatives It is important when making a decision that you have a few possible outcomes and then discuss these outcomes to see which seems most doable. In this case the company could possibly offer lower premiums to employee’s that meet healthier statistics. The healthier the person then the lower the cost of insurance. They could also change the plan to only cover the employee and not family members. Lastly the company could pay out an unknown amount to employees that do not take the company’s insurance so that they can use it toward getting their own policy. All of these are possible ideas that could be discussed.
Assess the Alternatives Each person could have a physical and those that come across as “healthier” or low cholesterol, healthy weight, and no diseases would receive lower premiums for being healthier and taking care of their bodies. This option would save money and help motivate employees to be healthy. The option to only cover the employee and not the family would also help save money but if you have a lot of staff with families that need the coverage the company could wind up losing staff or creating anger in the workplace which is never good. In a survey by Boston Children’s Hospital this concern was only asked about 6% of the time. Main concerns were all related to cost and not who it covered which makes this a possible option. The last option, paying out a fee to employees not to take the insurance is also a viable option as long as the cost for the employee to take out their own policy isn’t breaking their bank. “The individual chooses the alternative which provides the highest utility” (Bundorf, Nicholson & Polsky, 2005, p1263). Essentially the employee goes through the same decisions as the employer offering the insurance.
Choose Among Alternatives For the sake of this paper we will say that the company chose to go with the option to offer lower premiums to healthier employees. This will help motivate the company to be healthier which leads to good things overall for the