Passport to Wellness

For those of us who spend much, if not most, of our days behind a desk, getting enough exercise is a constant challenge. It's easy to get caught up in the ritual of a a busy work schedule and before you know it another day has flown by without getting anywhere near the amount of recommended physical activity. Employers are starting to get the message that healthy employees are productive employees and part of health involves getting getting up and out of our chairs and moving around.

Pinnacol offers all sort of health amenities to its employees from an on-site wellness center and classes to rewards and incentives to those who make the effort to take advantage of healthy choices. A new program just rolled out called Passport to Wellness. The program involves participating in upcoming wellness events both inside Pinnacol and out and offers incentives at different levels of participation.

I know the people who come up with these programs have their work cut out for them because its hard to motivate others to make healthy changes. I also know that some of the efforts have been successful. I can remember just a few years ago the on-site locker rooms and wellness centers were used by only a small handful of employees but now most days the wellness center is nearly full  and you have to wait for a shower at the end of a workout.

This weekend saw Denver host the Colfax half and full Marathon. This morning when I came in Silvia pulled me aside from her duties at our main reception desk to show me her medal for completing her first half marathon. She mentioned that just a year ago she wouldn't have been caught running because she had sore knees. Now she's completed her first half and is actually looking forward to doing more with aspirations of working her way up to the full marathon. She's also got her first "stamp" in her Passport to Wellness. Congratulations Silvia (and to all the other Pinnacol employees who also ran in this weekend's event) on a major accomplishment. You're a real inspiration to me and everyone else at Pinnacol!

Open Communication...

Pinnacol has been interviewing candidates for our open CEO position for the last couple of months, and during that time John Plotkin, our Board of Directors Vice Chair, has been serving as interim CEO. This week I had the chance to sit in with John as he held one of several employee round tables where employees share what is on their mind and John can answer their questions directly. During his time with us John has made a conscious effort to engage frequently with employees by attending team meetings and holding these round table sessions. Employees greatly appreciate his efforts and I think most of us feel very comfortable sharing thoughts and concerns directly with him.

John's efforts are not without precedent. While I'm still just a young pup with only 16 years of service, I've seen similar efforts by the two prior CEO's I have had the privilege to work under. Gary Pon was CEO when I first joined what was then known as the Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority (commonly referred to back then as CCIA). Gary had been instrumental in transitioning our organization from its days as a State Agency. Gary held regular Breakfasts With The President and I had the chance to attend many of these sessions. When Gary retired and Ken Ross took the helm in 2005 Ken maintained the tradition with his Coffee Talks With Ken sessions.

When we have new employees join the company I've always encouraged them to sign up for these sessions with our CEO's sooner rather than later. Not every company sees their CEO take the initiative and time to meet regularly with employees, and not every CEO is astute enough to realize this is more a learning opportunity for them as leaders of the organization than it is for the employees who attend. I had a teacher in school who used to say that to learn you first had to listen and my impression is that Gary, Ken, and now John, appreciate that sentiment.

We don't know yet who our new CEO will be but we are looking forward to wlecoming them to the organization. Hopefully whoever next assumes this role will continue, by whatever name, the ongoing dialog with employees.  

Business Director Assistant opportunity now available...

Due to a recent promotion we now have an opportunity available for a Business Director Assistant to provide support to three of our business team leaders and their multi-functional teams.

Our Business Director Assistants perform a broad range of administrative duties such as: preparing reports and presentations using charts, graphs, and narratives , handling customer correspondence and customer relations, and working on special projects assigned by Business Directors. This position also maintains calendars for Business Directors, schedules meetings, makes travel arrangements and prepares team expense reports. Our Business Director Assistants also maintain calendars and time off schedules for the teams and review staff timesheets for accuracy. They also plan and execute various events including group volunteering and team building activities.

Successful candidates must be able to handle multiple projects simultaneously with minimal direction while exercising frequent independent judgment within agreed-upon limits. Business Director Assistants must be able to act independently and exercise initiative in the coordination of administrative policies, regulations, and guidelines, projects, and financial analysis and be able to maintain effective working relationships with people throughout the organization while communicating effectively with the public and other agencies and organizations.   Excellent computer skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, excellent verbal and written communication skills, along with the ability to analyze, assemble, and compile information for reports and 3-5 years of experience in support of managers are required. If this sounds like you, please apply on-line!

New Associate Vice President of Information Technology opportunity!

Our Chief Information Officer, Rob, has shared with me that he is now looking to fill a newly created position of Associate Vice President of Information Technology. More than one out of ten Pinnacol employees works in our I.T. shop which is a reflection of the importance that technology now plays in serving our customers. He is still finalizing the formal job description but as this is sure to be a highly sought after opportunity I wanted to get the job announcement out as quickly as possible.

Rob will be looking for someone who can provide visionary, strategic, and collaborative leadership in the areas of information technology infrastructure and operations in order achieve Pinnacol's vision, business strategies, and technology strategies. Areas this position will oversee will include: computational resources, data storage, database management, application servers, web servers, application development environments, networking, Internet, backup, security, network monitoring, personal computing, telecommunications, mobility, electronic mail, unified communications, employee collaboration, personal productivity, batch processing, and procurement.

Ideally, candidates for the Associate Vice President of Information Technology will bring ten years of management experience within a midsize or large organization, five years of which must be in areas associated with information technology infrastructure and operations, and five years of which must include managing other people in management positions. A Bachelor’s degree in a field related to information technology, a solid understanding of most, if not all, areas of information technology infrastructure and operations, and significant experience managing projects are also required.

If this background matches yours we would love to hear from you. As always, we ask candidates to please apply on-line through our company website.

9HealthFair a Great Success!

Wednesday April 24th saw Pinnacol host the 9HealthFair for the 10th consecutive year. As always we saw a heavy turnout of community members coming in to get their health checked through a wide variety of free and low-cost screenings. Fortunately the weather cooperated this year with the only snow in sight being some left-over piles from plowing the lot from the storms earlier in the week.

Its always nice to meet people from the local community and to invite them into our facility and have them interact with our employees face to face. This year we changed the flow of traffic through our building and it seemed to help prevent major bottlenecks from occurring at any of the screening stations. You never know who you will meet, and I had the chance to reconnect with the realtor who sold my wife and I our home more than 20 years ago.

The 9HealthFair is one of the larger events that Pinnacol employees volunteer for during the year. Pinnacol provides up to two days of paid time off every year for employees to volunteer in the community. From Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Adopt A Spot to Volunteers of America and the National Sports Center for the Disabled and all sorts of other wonderful organizations its a real honor for our employees to be able to give back to the communities in which we live and raise our families. Thank you to all those who attended this year's fair!

Openings Update...

Phew! It's been a busy couple of weeks, but in today's world when is it not busy? Thought I'd give a quick update on our current opportunities as we are still looking to fill a wide variety of opportunities with Pinnacol.

• Claims Representative - we are still looking for experienced adjusters, who preferably have direct experience to handling workers' compensation insurance claims
• Subrogation Claims Representative - I almost wish we had come up with a better title for this position as I think it has created some confusion among applicants. This position is not a "Claims Adjuster" role; instead it focuses on facilitating subrogation issues identified by our regular Claims Representatives (Adjusters) and our legal team. The ideal candidate for this type of role would likely have experience handling subrogation issues or come from a paralegal background working at a law firm or insurance company handling insurance issues.
• Project Manager - We are actively interviewing qualified candidates with solid project management experience but are still encouraging additional applicants to apply as we have several openings in this area. PMP certifications and exposure to Agile preferred.
• Business Service/Customer Service Representatives - Our Business Services Representatives provide administrative and clerical support to our multifunctional insurance teams, while the Customer Service position primarily focuses on handling calls and questions coming in from our policyholders, injured workers, medical providers, and others.

We have a couple of other positions listed on our company website but are well along in the interview process and not soliciting additional candidates for those at the present time. However, if you are interested in one of the positions listed above we would love to hear from you! Please apply online at www.pinnacol.com/careers.

Ramping up for another 9HealthFair!

I attended a meeting this morning for all the Pinnacol volunteers who will be instrumental in running this year's 9HealthFair at our location (7501 East Lowry Blvd., Denver, CO 80230) on Wednesday April 24th. As always there will be a wide variety of screenings available at no or minimal cost. Some of the screenings include:

• Cancer screenings
• Vision screening
• Spine screening
• Bone and Foot screening
• Skin screening
• Lung function screening
• Oral screening
• Hearing/Nutrition/Sleep Apnea screenings
• and More...

Health is obviously of critical importance to everyone and the 9HealthFairs around town are the perfect way to get a quick and easy check-up. If you can't make it to our location check out the 9HealthFair website to find a location convenient to you. If you do come to our location, I and all the other Pinnacol volunteers look forward to seeing you!