I’m loving the new update and especially the complexity that the Health Benefits has added but I’ve got to say that I think the negotiating aspect is underwhelming. It’s not really worth the time to negotiate for up to 10 cents off and the only way to cost-save on Health Insurance seems to be to request the same plan for everyone and pick the cheapest.
So I have a suggestion for implementation that’s rooted in the real world (in the USA) and can keep the Health Benefits mechanic fun into late game:
Have the hospital offer bronze, silver, and gold tier health insurance “Pools”. To have a manager offer a certain tier of insurance you would assign them to one of the three pools and initially you won’t have any room to negotiate price. Once a year there would be a “Enrollment Period” (like the 20 days you have to pay taxes) and in that period you could negotiate the price per employee. The more people you are buying insurance for in each Insurance Pool then the more power you should have in being able to dictate a lower price per Pool (ergo Price per employee), just like in real life.
This would mean that your are spending more total dollars on insurance each year but can also spend less per employee.
I dunno, maybe it’s dumb. But I like the negotiating aspect of the game and currently you only do it once per HR manager and only for about 10 cents. It would be nice to extend the mechanic and make it feel more substantive.
Employees are requesting Health Insurance before I have even opened a Headquarters or learned how to hire people for my Headquarters in Tutorial. It is showing me how to work a Purchasing Agent, but I already have multiple employees wanting health insurance and haven’t gotten to the point of hiring an HR person!! LOL . This should be adjusted to follow tutorial for new players, so to not cause confusion or having employees leave before you even hire an HR person and train them to a decent level.
In Monday’s patch, they won’t request insurance at 50% skill anymore, which is what the tutorial instructs you to do. So, it won’t happen until you push them further on your own! This should help 1) it won’t happen nearly as soon 2) You’ll have two other demands to fulfill, so if you ignore Health Insurance for a while, there won’t be impact if you are fulfilling the other two demands.
The HR employee needs to be trained to 100% for them to train other employees to this level. This can take 5-6 days before they are at this level. They are also unassigned while doing this, so unable to provide life insurance or other duties until done. If training several other employees at same time the requests for medical insurance will still be a problem, since the HR employee is in training for almost a week. I train my workers at same time. Why would I put off training workers when I can train them at same time as HR person? 50% gain( 5 days training) in Customer Service is too much to lose by not training at same time or waiting for HR person to be trained to 100% before they can do it. I hope you understand my point. Thanks!
Maybe having employee requests limited or not happen until your HR person is trained or actually activated in the Headquarters would help this problem. Why would you want a HR person activated who is not 100% trained?? They are ineffective and pointless unless 100% in my opinion. How does a HR person who is 50% help you? or train others? LOL
The HR Manager facilitates the training so the employees can be trained while working, but HR doesn’t actually train them. So 50% HR is still very useful. HR’s level only impacts the price of training, and how many people they can train. Employees can be trained to 100%, even if the HR Manager is lower.
Employees shouldn’t lose any satisfaction while training, so if you train the other workers at the same time as HR, that would be perfect and no one would lose satisfaction!
In Tutorial, I have 2 businesses operating before Headquarters task. I could have 4 or more employees depending on full time or part time and how long I want businesses to stay open. These employees will probably be already trained to 100%, so can request any of the 3 levels of medical insurance. This is before Headquarters/HR task starts or is finished , so could be a problem for current fully trained employees. Plus, I would need 3 HR people to cover each level of insurance, plus training costs of these 3 HR people, plus the time required to train, plus extra costs of desks, chair and computer for each. This could get very pricey at early stage of game and hopefully the fully trained employees do not leave before I can get HR people trained to 100%. If they do, then I have lost money and have to spend more on new staff again! I thin this scenario is legit. What do you think? I could use less trained employees early and risk having them leave(no training costs incurred} but seems a waste of time.
You will already have 2 other demands at that point. If you are satisfying those two demands, you won’t have to worry about Health Insurance. It won’t be a problem at all.
If you satisfy their other two demands, then they won’t leave. If you’re ignoring the other demands, then that’s a problem no matter what.
I have been buying GOLD INSURANCE for everyone to keep the cost of HR department low as it can be operated by one HR Manager for longer, and this seems to keep employees happy to be getting GOLD when they only asked for Silver or Bronze. A little more costly, but offset by having fewer HR Managers, desks, computers, etc.