MAXIS GBN International Forum 2014

MAXIS GBN’s 2014 International Forum, “Global Collaboration: Shaping the Future of Employee Benefits,” held from Wednesday April 9 through Thursday April 10 at the Conrad Hotel in Miami, Florida, was a great success. Our clients, network members and brokers shared their experience with the MAXIS GBN team, as we discussed the challenges and trends of the Employee Benefits market and worked together to shape our future collaboration.

FORUM HIGHLIGHTS

Walk Around the World

The conference kicked off with 45 member representatives covering 65 countries sharing their local market knowledge with attendees. Both clients and brokers appreciated the opportunity to hold one-on-one meetings with MAXIS GBN Members, discovering their wide range of capabilities and their high level of expertise. It was also a great networking opportunity for Members, strengthening global collaboration within the network. One client said that the opportunity to meet face to face with a local expert enabled him to accomplish in two hours what would normally take two weeks!

Trendspotting and the Future of Employee Benefits

Keynote speaker, Magnus Lindkvist, a noted futurologist, challenged the group to think about how to create, recycle and experiment with new ideas. “In today’s business environment, you must create or compete in order to succeed in the future,” said Lindkvist. “To drive vertical changes, the focus should be on creating magic – new ideas that might be recycled or re-used, or experiments that require patience and persistency,” added Lindkvist.  The futurologist noted that most companies choose to compete by trying to make [existing] products faster or better. However, it is the companies that can create new ideas and continue to push for innovation that are poised for future growth.

Three Dimensions of Global Health: Physical, Emotional, and Financial

Magnus’s advice was highly relevant to one of the most discussed conference topics, global health. Medical costs are consistently trending up 10% per year, the “indirect” costs of absenteeism and presenteeism resulting from chronic illness are enormous, and employees are experiencing high levels of stress. These are all long term trends that have a sizable impact on employers. The solutions must go beyond old approaches just focused on cost transfer and network management – we need to create ways of addressing employee health from a holistic perspective.

To better focus efforts to improve employee health and wellness, Mandi Veil, Vice President Global Health Care, Global Employee Benefits, MetLife, Inc. and Dan DeKeizer, Senior Vice President, Global Employee Benefits, MetLife, Inc. shared perspectives on the three dimensions of health - physical, emotional and financial.  We also heard from client and member panel participants about new solutions and the ways multinational corporations are using global wellness programs as a strategic lever.   

We at MAXIS GBN appreciated the opportunity to gather with so many member companies, clients, and experts for what was a great event.  We would like to thank all who participated and look forward to engaging with all of you in the future!

Several topics - European Health Care Reform, Digital Employee Benefit Initiatives in Asia, and Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) regulations in the USA - generated a lot of buzz.

We wanted to share our expertise and hear your perspective on these issues for those who couldn’t join us in Miami,so we hosted a series of webcasts on each topic. 

To watch video coverage of the sessions, please see our Knowledge centre.

Visit Knowledge centre