Press & Interviews

By North Bay Business Journal columnists Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil
Technology is sexy. It sells. And, in the benefits industry, it attracts big venture capital investment dollars. Many companies have sprouted up in the last decade, promising a panacea of ease and simplicity in executing benefits, HR and payroll programs. We agree, to an extent, with their intention of making employee benefits easier with software and automation. Where the majority of them fail is in integrating the vital human component.

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Photo credit: Fizkes / Shutterstock

September 2022

Beyond the Boardroom featuring Rosario Avila
by Summer Young

Senior benefits advisor Rosario Avila has spent her life in the service industry.  She leads the Spanish language division at Arrow Benefits Group, where she finds solutions for small businesses and helps her community to understand the complex language of insurance.

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New Leadership Roles: Can You Adapt?
Article by Mariah Shields, ABG Benefits Consultant

Coping with the current business climate takes imagination, innovation and no fear of change. These days, when teams don’t have the benefit of being physically together in an office, where mentorship, training and camaraderie would traditionally happen more naturally, it falls on company leaders to establish a more evolved company culture and create meaningful connections between co-workers.

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Why employee benefits benchmarking drives change
By North Bay Business Journal columnists Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil
Ever ponder what your competitors are doing to attract and retain employees? How your company benefits compare alongside others of similar size or demographics? Benefits benchmarking is an in-depth analysis of how your employee benefits offerings compare to those of others in your industry, similar industries, geographic region.

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Photo credit: Garagestock / Shutterstock

Benefit packages: Think outside the box
From Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Business Journal Columnists
Traditional benefits have become expected. Taking your benefits program “outside the box” to develop a program tailor-made to employees’ unique situation is what leading organizations do to catapult themselves above competitors in the talent war. It’s common for an employer to offer a traditional employee benefits package. That’s just not enough anymore.

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Photo credit: One Photo / Shutterstock

Strategic business growth: You may be happy at holiday time, but are your employees?
From Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil, North Bay Business Journal Columnists
December is traditionally a time of reflection for us all. Leaders in the business world know that strategic reflection is a valuable tool to up-level a company. But one piece often overlooked when assessing productivity and success is the focus on employee happiness. We know even the very notion of thinking — are our employees happy — is traditionally not examined in the business world. It should be.

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Photo credit: Maslowski Marcin / Shutterstock

Transparency and Health Care Consumerism
by Jordan Shields

Ask anyone who has suffered a serious injury or illness, or is living with a chronic condition necessitating continual and considerable expense, how they feel about the state of health care in the U.S. The inner workings of our health-care delivery system remain a mystery. Transparency is helpful, but like all such legislation, it spawns additional questions. For example, what does the terminology mean? Does this include any contract or cash discounts? Are there alternative therapies or procedures available, and what do they cost?

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Corporate Culture
Interview with Andrew McNeil & Rosario Avila

“Every company has one, whether [it’s] good or bad,” says Andrew McNeil, principal and senior benefits advisor at Arrow Benefits Group in Petaluma, which provides benefit programs for more than 1,400 employer clients in California. “If you have two people, you have a culture. How you live and work in it defines it.

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The Art of Attracting and Retaining Employees
by Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila

As the workforce gets younger and demographics change, companies across all industries are looking for new ways to attract and retain their labor force. In Napa and Sonoma counties, wineries and other businesses are currently competing with the cannabis and construction industries for local workers. Along with competitive wages, many companies now offer new, more meaningful benefits to their employees beyond the traditional, run-of-the-mill medical plans and benefits package.

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Employee Benefit News exclusive Video interview with Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila: How technology can make or break client relationships.

“Technology is the most vital issue for benefits brokers today…a lot of people that we see are not embracing technology when clients want it.” In this Lightning Round video, McNeil and Avila — Employee Benefit Adviser’s 2019 Advisers of the Year — also discuss bilingual employee engagement and how they get over differences as business partners.

Click here to watch the video…