Fruit to Work Day?

June 24th is Denver's annual Bike to Work Day so next Wednesday you'll see more bikes on the road than normal. Employee wellness is a big part of Pinnacol's culture and every year we have a healthy contingent of participants pounding the pedals to work from every part of Denver. I'm fortunate that most of my route uses off road bike paths but this year will be a little more challenging. Between construction tearing up significant parts of the trails and some locations still underwater from recent floods many cyclists will be forced onto roads where motorists are perhaps not quite so used to seeing bicyclists so it will be important for everyone to be watching out for each other.

Pinnacol will be participating in the 2nd annual Colorado's Healthiest Places to Work event on August 20th. Health Links, which sponsors the event, stopped by yesterday to video some of our facilities. The video included some of our employees being very good sports dressed as fruits and vegetables and I caught up with two who I'll refer to as Ms. Grape and Ms. Lemon (aka Megan and Nicole) to tie them in to Bike, or perhaps more appropriately given the way they were dressed, Fruit to Work Day. Nicole regularly bikes or walks to work but I'm still working on Megan to take the plunge.

According to the Denver Business Journal more than 14,500 people have committed to riding in to work next week. Cyclists tend to be a pretty colorful group (they wear those bright colors in an effort to be highly visible) but I doubt any will be so uniquely attired as our very own Ms. Grape and Ms. Lemon. Be safe and we hope to see you out there!
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As an addendum, Pinnacol had 39 employees participate in this year's Bike to Work festivities. Here's most of them after having safely arrived in the morning. The afternoon was a completely different story with some very nasty weather (torrential rains, thunderstorms, and tornado warnings) prompting many of our riders to prudently seek alternative ways home.

New opportunities with Pinnacol Assurance...

We have several new and different opportunities that are now open with our company so wanted to share some of those with you.

One of these is for a Wellness and Benefits Administrator. Note the nuance of the word order - it was intentionally titled with the Wellness component first. A primary focus of this role is helping raise awareness and promoting the benefits of maintaining a healthy lifestyle to our employees. This position will design and market Pinnacol’s comprehensive Everyday Wellness programs (including health screenings and risk assessments, awareness events and motivational contests) to employees and evaluate participant success and satisfaction. On the Benefits side this position will be responsible for administering Pinnacol’s non-insured employee benefit programs. The Wellness and Benefits Administrator role requires extensive knowledge of health and welfare benefit plans with the ability to interpret plan documents to answer employee questions, the ability to understand and comply with complex regulations, and the ability to research and compile information in a web environment. Intermediate skills in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, an Associate’s Degree or equivalent work experience in Business or related field is required and two years of wellness experience is desired.

We also have several opportunities in our Medical Payments and Provider Relations groups. Our Medical Payment Reviewers make sure we pay the Doctors and other medical providers who take care of injured workers in a timely and accurate manner. These positions are highly skilled and candidates should have at least 1 year of computerized claims processing experience, a good working knowledge of medical terminology including CPT and ICD9 (soon to be ICD10) codes and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment. We're also looking for Complex Bill Processors, a Med Pay Quality Control Analyst, and a Provider Medical Bill Auditor.

On the Provider Relations side (this team acts as liaisons between our medical providers and our company) we have two opportunities. The first is for a Medical Operations Assistant who provides administrative support to the entire team and the second is for a Provider Relations Specialist which interacts directly with the medical providers. More information on all these positions is available on our company website and we encourage those who are interested to apply online.

Around the World Food Festival Has Mouths Watering

Every other year our Diversity Task Force organizes a very popular event called "The Around the World Food Festival". It's a celebration of food and cultures representative of our employees. This year's event is taking place in our parking lot and for the first time will also include multiple food trucks from which our employees can sample all sorts of different cuisines. As always, a lot of our employees are also cooking and preparing their favorite recipes and I can vouch for the fact that we have a lot of good cooks who work at Pinnacol. I went out early to grab some 'before' pictures as I know there is a lot of hard work and planning that goes into putting on such an event. The Around the World Food Festival wouldn't happen without that hard work so on behalf of the nearly 600 employees who are about to satiate their appetites I'd like to say thank you to all those who arranged the event as well as to those who's work over hot stoves we'll be sampling shortly.

Rodney, Nicole, and Tashana help set up
before the crowds arrive

Not to be forgotten of course is the message behind this tasty event. Pinnacol's employees come from a tremendous variety of backgrounds and we recognize that this variety makes us a better company and a better place in which to work and serve our customers. 

We were talking among the HR team this morning that the company would probably gain about a thousand pounds today. Food is a constant perk and constant challenge at Pinnacol and we warn new employees about watching out for the dreaded "Pinnacol 15" (pounds). 

As folks started to pick up their trays it was apparent they were going to have some tough food decisions to make. Where to begin? What to sample? What have I not had before? One of the food trucks was sampling cuisine from the Philippines and that seemed like some of the more unique food to try.

Over at the Pinnacol Chef's line there was all sorts of epicurean fare laid out and it was clear no one was going to go hungry today.

I'm sure each of our employees will find a particular favorite and perhaps even be tempted to ask for a secret recipe or two. It's said that food is a language that brings people together and if today's event was any indication there was a whole lot of talking (and eating!) going on.

The importance of References

The past few weeks, I have been really getting into the nitty gritty of my role in Human Resources (or Employee Services) at Pinnacol Assurance. At Pinnacol, we check references once the managers want to proceed in the hiring process. We ask for 3 professional references preferably from current and past supervisors.  For those who have little or no work experience, we ask for references from someone like a professor or someone in a leadership role who knows you well. Using friends and family is not always the best idea. They already have a biased opinion towards you and probably won’t be a reliable reference. 

To my surprise, one thing I have begun to notice is that some references that we have been given lately do not even know that an applicant has used them on a reference list when we call to speak with them. Not only are they surprised and uncertain as to what to say, but they seem to be harder to reach when they are not expecting our call which makes the move toward an offer take longer.

The purpose of this blog is to help potential applicants understand that REFERENCES ARE IMPORTANT! It is important to make sure that you inform the people you intend to use for references for 2 main reasons; they will be anticipating a phone call and will respond in a timely manner, and it will help the applicant weed out potentially negative reviews about themselves. Before you even list someone as references, you should check with them to make sure that they will give you a good review. You should choose people who have known you for a while to make that reference more meaningful.

Helpful advice:

·       Always reach out to a potential reference before using them.

·       Make sure they will speak positively about you.

·       Make sure your references know your abilities and how well you work.

·       Avoid using friends and family.

·       When you lack professional work references ask a teacher, professor or advisor if you can use them.

·       Make sure you reference list is up to date with the following correct information:

• Reference’s Full Name
• Current Job Title
• Company Name
• Business Address
• Contact Information (Daytime Telephone Number; E-mail; Cell Phone Number, etc.) 
• The reference’s relationship to you/ How you know this reference

Have a few people as a backup in case your potential employer cannot reach the references you have provided.

Having a reference talk about a weakness you have is not always a bad thing. Know what your weakness is, talk about it with your reference, and address what you are doing to grow from that past experience. When you can talk about this with your reference, your reference will be able to communicate this to your potential employer in a manner that will not hinder your chances at gaining potential employment.

What does Work/Life Balance look like to you?

We have regular staff meetings for the Human Resources/Learning & Organizational Development team. At our last meeting the discussion came up about the changing nature of what Work/Life balance means in today's work environment.

Through my years at Pinnacol the company has had the philosophy that the best employees were those who could maintain a healthy Work/Life balance. The thought was that those who focus solely on work would not best represent Pinnacol to our customers and would likely be tough to be around and would eventually suffer from overwork and burnout. Clearly technology has had a major impact on what Work/Life balance looks like in today's world. Not only can people be connected to Work remotely they can also bring Life to work (how often do you check Facebook, personal e-mail, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc. during the work day?).

I have candidates ask me about Work/Life balance at Pinnacol all the time. There are a couple of things I tell them:

• Pinnacol tries to staff accordingly so that our employees are not routinely working too many hours (not every employee at Pinnacol works only 40 hours a week, but we frown if we see them routinely working 50-60 hour weeks)
• We offer some flexible scheduling to accommodate those who prefer to come in early and leave early as well as those who like to come in later. The caveat here is that as long as the work is getting done there is considerable flexibility.
• Telecommuting is not a widespread practice at Pinnacol currently. We are in a team environment, we have our fair share of meetings throughout the day, and the preference is for people to be physically present to be able to interact in person. This one is a hot topic for our employees though and we continue to discuss possible options. 
• Our work week is generally Monday through Friday 8 to 5 (some specialized staff in I.T., Facilities, etc. occasionally work outside of normal business hours) which most employees enjoy as it allows them time to be with their families who often work that same type of schedule.  

All this aside, I don't know that it answers the core question - what is Work/Life balance? I know that when I'm not at work I'm often still thinking about work (some of my best work-related ideas come in the shower). I do a lot of cycling and for me that's my truly work-free time. I was at a youth sporting event not too long ago and observed a father along the sidelines. Rather than watching his child participate he was clearly busy working on his phone. Is that Work/Life balance? Maybe for him it was. I used to have a supervisor who would send out e-mails in the middle of the night. Fortunately she didn't expect an immediate response! For her that may have been the definition of Work/Life balance. 

Part of me worries that we have simply moved away from the focus on balance and have crossed over into simply trying to juggle both aspects of Work and Life unsuccessfully. The positive thing is that the conversation is alive and well at Pinnacol. We clearly don't have all the answers but at least we're open to discussing it. Work/Life balance may be a moving target but hopefully we'll continue to make progress. What does Work/Life balance mean to you?

Safety Consultant openings in two territories now open!

For our 100th year our communications folks came up with the tagline that "Protecting Coloradans on the job never gets old". A big part of that are our efforts around ensuring that Colorado workplaces are as safe as they can be. As far back as 1929 in the heart of the Great Depression we hired what was then called an Inspector of Industries who's duties were devoted to full-time accident prevention. Today we are looking for candidates interested in filling two Safety Consultant roles.

The first Safety Consultant position will be based in Colorado Springs or Pueblo and will be focused on Construction. For this position experienced candidates as well as recent graduates will be considered. The other opening is for an experienced Safety Consultant who will be serving the northern front range and have a focus on the Natural Resources (oil & gas, mining) and Construction industries. Both of these positions conduct or assist in implementing one or more of the following services to our policyholders: safety program development and on site safety inspections, Cost Containment Certification assistance, accident and injury trend analysis, OSHA compliance assistance, ergonomic resources, and will research & update other staff on changing regulations & emerging safety issues.  Both positions requires considerable travel within their assigned territories. 

Successful candidates must be a self-starter, well organized and have good computer, communication, and presentation skills. A Bachelor's Degree in safety or related field/safety work experience may be substituted on a year-for-year basis. 

If you are interested in either of these positions please complete our on-line application. We look forward to hearing from you!

My life as an intern at Pinnacol

Hi, my name is Alyson and I am an Intern in the Human Resources department at Pinnacol Assurance. I wanted to share my experience as an intern so I could help people understand what life at Pinnacol Assurance is all about. Maybe this will inspire some to join our family or maybe this will better inform you of what day to day operations in the HR department are really like. Either way, I am happy to be here, learning and developing from a wonderful team who really knows Human Resources.

As a soon to be graduating student, one of the requirements I have to fulfill to receive my degree is to intern within my field. I'm studying Healthcare Management and Communications at Metropolitan State University. When I was first introduced to the entire process I would have to go through as an intern and student I was petrified. There is something about internships that is semi-frightening; however, I could not tell you what specifically was so scary about the idea. Maybe it was having to choose a place that would help build my practical use of skills for my career, or maybe it was the pressure of securing an actual internship site and interviewing for a position, or it could have been the idea that wherever I did choose to intern at would place me on a specific path towards my future career. I had no idea where I saw myself in the Healthcare world, but I already had previous clinical experience being a medical assistant. Either way, I had no idea what I wanted to do exactly and that was scary.

Then, by chance, I met Barbara. She is the Vice President of Human Resources at Pinnacol Assurance. Barbara was kind enough to set me up with an interview with the HR department for a possible internship, and I was nervous. I had already been on 4 other interviews, and still had no direction as to which one would suit me best. I knew that Pinnacol was involved in workers' compensation insurance, but that was about all I knew about them as a company. I did a little bit of research about Pinnacol to prepare me for my interview. I headed into my interview and an hour later walked out more excited about this opportunity than I had expected. Could this be the career opportunity I had been looking for? Something that would challenge me and that was new to me as both an intern and professional? YES! After a few short weeks, I was offered the internship in the Human Resources department.

I just started my third week of my internship and I have learned so much. David and Megan have really taken me under their wing and have taught and included me in so many daily functions of the job in just the short amount of time that I have been here already. Life at Pinnacol is great. The people I am surrounded by are so nice and willing to help me learn anything of interest to me that will help me build a strong professional foundation. All of the people I have been introduced to in the building have made me feel so welcome. I do not get treated like an intern; everyone treats me like a fellow co-worker who is just learning the ropes of the workers compensation world and HR role within the organization.

In just my first few days at Pinnacol as an Intern, I was able to be a part of the new hire process which includes first day paperwork, orientation, and a tour of the facility.  From the moment I sat down with Megan to fill out paperwork and participate in orientation, I could see just how important the company’s mission, vision, and values are and how they are incorporated in everyday work life here. Integrity, innovation, teamwork, accountability and excellence are the core values that really establish Pinnacol as a reputable company. As of now, I am helping new hires fill out paperwork, and after sitting in on a few orientations, I will soon be able to lead orientation and explain what Pinnacol Assurance is all about, including how important a new hires’ role is to ensuring successful business practices.

Interactive timeline of our history at Pinnacol.com

If you haven't visited our company website recently they have added a nice interactive timeline that gives a quick overview of our history. As many of you know, 2015 marks our 100 year anniversary of serving the State of Colorado.

Our history covers a lot of American history. Created in the middle of a World War we've seen Colorado and the nation go through Great Depressions and Great Recessions, periods of substantial labor unrest, major societal changes, several additional wars, Y2K, 9-11, and several name changes for our company. Through it all we've maintained a sense of pride in being able to serve the people in the best State in the country and we're looking forward to what the next hundred years bring.

Some new opportunities with Pinnacol!

We've had a couple of new opportunities come open that I wanted to share with folks. We are looking for an Investigations Assistant, a Medical Operations Assistant, and two Med Pay Reviewer/Processors. Each of these positions is an outstanding opportunity to join Pinnacol Assurance.

The Investigations Assistant position, part of our Special Investigations Unit (SIU) provides assistance to our Investigators as they investigate allegations of fraud. This position is responsible for conducting records research and obtaining documentation from courts, law enforcement agencies, and state and local entities and also obtains driving records, registrations, photo identifications, and driver's license applications, and conducts background investigations. Must be assertive, thorough, and diligent in conducting the research necessary to obtain the required information. Two years in worker’s compensation insurance, investigations, or paralegal/legal/records research experience preferred along with strong PC/software skills. This is an ideal entry level opportunity for recent graduates in Criminology. Travel within the state via personal vehicle is required. Must possess valid driver’s license and vehicle insurance.

We are also looking for a Medical Operations Assistant who has at least 2 years of general office experience, preferably in an insurance or medical setting, to be responsible for the administrative support of our Medical Operations team. Our Medical Operations team acts as our company's liaison with our network of medical providers that take care of injured workers. Strong computer, typing, and data entry skills along with the ability to coordinate multiple tasks either individually or as part of an overall project with minimal supervisory direction is required for this role.

 For the Med Pay Reviewer/Processor positions we are looking for detail-oriented candidates with at least 1 year of computerized claims processing experience, a good working knowledge of medical terminology including CPT and ICD9 codes and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment. These positions reviews bills for services related to Pinnacol’s liability as a workers’ compensation insurer and are responsible for reviewing or entering all fields on each bill to verify the data is correct and reviewing all system parameters to establish that billed charges are payable. These positions also apply Colorado Workers Compensation fee schedules and PPO discounts to billings and communicate with other departments and/or providers when required. The Med Pay Reviewer/Processor starts as office-based, but the option to work from home is available once a processor demonstrates mastery of the position and the ability to meet daily production quality and quantity standards. Must be familiar with CMS 1500 and UB94 billing forms as well as a variety of other types of billing. Experience on PPO claims is a plus and Coding certification is preferred.

If one of these positions sounds interesting please let us know by completing an on-line application. We look forward to hearing from you!