Managerial Decision-Making Report

on
Evive Health and Workplace Influenza Vaccinations

Assignment 3
Business Communication

Submitted to
Prof. Rihana Shaikh

Submitted by
Parmi Modi

On
August 25, 2021

1
 Letter of Transmittal

Aug 25, 2021

Prof. Rihana Shaikh

Jindal Global Business School
JGU
Sonipat, Haryana

Subject: Report on the case “Evive Health and Workplace Influenza Vaccinations”
Dear Ma’am,
As per the guidelines provided by you during the live session discussion, I hereby submit a report on the
case titled, ‘Evive Health and Workplace Influenza Vaccinations’. This report has been prepared after
going through the entire case and carefully analyzing facts and assumptions. The report contains the
relevant facts in the introduction, problem statement and the list of possible alternatives and best action
plan to be implemented.
I request you to evaluate this report and provide your valuable inputs.

Regards,
Parmi Modi

2
 Executive Summary
Evive Health, a Chicago based company was founded by with a view to encourage client’s employees
should adopt a range of health-promoting behaviors -from getting screened for serious illness to engaging
in preventative health measures to taking prescriptions as directed. However, people failed to follow these
recommendations. The root cause of this problem was that message was not delivered to the employees in
a correct way, it was too generic and wasn’t resonating in a way that motivated action. Then Evive
addressed this solution by harnessing two emerging trends which was big data revolution and application
of behavioral economics to the health setting. The company decoded health history of each of its
employees through its customers who were health insurance planner and large self-insured employers.
They then started reaching out to the customers employees via email or mailed letter framed from a
doctor which stated the facts and created awareness amongst them. Also, they started to encourage people
to take care of their health through variety of channels such as emails, text messages and sometimes
incorporated sticky notes/magnets on refrigerator as a reminder for employees to take get a health check-
up. Now one of their clients which was large utility company located in Midwest, wanted to its employees
to get a flu shot as it was a flu season and many people were dying from the flu. They had setup clinics at
62 different office locations for several business hours so that people can get shot within office premises
itself and if the employees missed the workplace clinics or didn’t wish to get the shot there, they could
pay a small fee to obtain a flu shot at pharmacy or at doctor’s office, the company health insurance plans
would cover rest of the cost. Inspire all these provisions, the utility company was facing power cuts due to
winter storms and employee’s absenteeism due to illness made it challenging for the company to restore
power and provide other services to customers. It is a challenge for Evive to encourage the employees to
take the flu shot looking at the current situation. Evive now has the following alternatives either to
conduct seminar/webinars or to extend vaccination benefits to employee’s family members or to create
small groups of people and then everyday send message in the group to remind them about the
vaccination drive. So now Prashant Srivastava, co-founder and CEO of the Evive Health and Jennifer
Lindner, Creative Director of Evive are tossing around the alternatives in the conference room.

3
 Table of Contents

S. No Content Pg No.
1 Situation Analysis 5
1 Problem Statement 5
3 Alternatives 5
4 Criteria 5
5 Evaluation of Alternatives 5&6
6 Recommendation 6
7 Contingency Plan 6

4
 1. Situational Analysis

A client of Evive Health, which was utility company located in Midwest, had approached them to lead the
campaign encouraging employees to obtain flu shots as the mortality rate due to increasing flu cases were
shooting up. Approximately 10,000 employees worked for the utility company and more than 3,000
employees were in a group for whom the CDC guidelines recommended vaccination and the company
wanted Evive to focus particular attention on promoting flu-shot among that group. The utility company
was offering free flu shots with the clinics scheduled to take place at 62 different office locations. At the
headquarter and offices where there were large number of employees, clinics would be open for several
days during business hours and offices with fewest employees would have clinic available for few hours
on a particular day. If the employee missed the workplace clinics or did not wish to obtain flu shots there,
they could pay a small fee to obtain a flu shot at the pharmacy or at doctor’s office and the company’s
health insurance plan would cover rest of the cost. However due to winter storms in Midwest which often
locked down the electrical power lines and employee’s absences due to illness made it challenging for the
company to restore power and other services to the customers. Now Srivastava and Lindnor focus was on
two objectives which was to incorporate ideas from behavioral economics to drive higher attendance rates
at the workplace clinics and they wanted to implement the campaign in a way that would allow them to
develop unique insights that would inform future interventions.

2. Problem Statement

Srivastava and Lindnor needs to decide: What is the best strategy to encourage employees to take the flu
shots at workplace.

3. Alternatives

i) To conduct seminars/webinars in office or at home.

ii) To extend vaccination benefits to employee’s family members.
iii) To create small groups of people and send them reminder through SMS and then conduct survey.

4. Criteria

i) Hand at time
ii) Behavior of Employees
iii) Additional Cost

5. Evaluation of Alternatives

i) To conduct seminars/webinars in office or at home.

Seminars/Webinar can be conducted prior to the flu vaccination drive so that employees can be made
aware about the dangers of the flu and how vaccination can help in curbing the disease. Seminars can be
conducted in the office premises by checking out the weather schedule on prior hand so that majority of
the people are present in the office and for those employees who are absent due to weather condition or
due to infection, can also use the option of webinar at home. Seminar/Webinars needs to be made
compulsory so that employees are made aware about the vaccination drive. The seminar can be done at
regular intervals during the business hours so that employees have flexibility to attend. The webinars can
be conducted through live sessions, or it can be recorded and be made available to the individual
depending upon his/her situation. Also, benefits such as free meal or day off can be given to employees

5
once they have taken the flu shot. By making this seminar/webinar mandatory, employees would be
reluctant or irritated in the beginning but once the session concludes and they are aware, they would be
encouraged to take up the flu shot. This drive wouldn’t lead to any additional cost to bore by the company
as they have already setup a campaign program with Evive Health and the campaign cost would include
the seminar/webinar expenses.
However, there might be instances that the employees wouldn’t pay attention in the seminars. Those who
are watching webinar might be doing some other work while the session is still going on. Although,
people are being made educated through this session, there might be few employees who would still be
reluctant to take flu shot even after attending these sessions, the reason can be due to ignorance of health,
the fear that flu shot might do harm to their bodies. So, all these reasons can be hindrance in the way of
employees taking flu shot.
ii) To extend vaccination benefits to employee’s family members.
The vaccination drive can be extended to the family members of the employees free of cost who visit the
office clinics. The employees might get motivated and there can be a sense of appreciation from
employees towards their company. This would lead to an additional cost to the utility company as they
now must buy more flu shots for the employees family members as well.
However, there can be instances where the family members of an employee are not comfortable to go all
the way to the office due to the distance in travelling involved. Also, there might be case where the
employee is not living with his/her family and so there might be case where he/she might not be
motivated/encouraged to get the flu shot. Further the utility company should also agree to bore the
additional cost of bringing in more flu shots.
iii) To create small groups of people and send them reminder through SMS and then conduct
survey.
The utility company can create small groups of people and assign each group a Healthcare Executive
from Evive Health. The assigned person can send a reminder every few days in the group regarding the
flu shot and once the individual takes the shot, they can fill in survey where relevant questionnaires can
be asked. The first message drafted can be regarding information about the flu and how flu shot can
prevent from getting infected so that employees get educated about the campaign and then constant
reminders which can be drafted in unique ways can be sent. Once they get flu shot and complete the
survey they can be removed from the groups. Also, benefits such as free meal or day off can be given to
employees. Employees of the utility company would be annoyed by seeing the constant reminders, but
this sort of nagging might help the utility company to vaccinate their employees. Also, there wouldn’t be
any additional costs which the utility company needs to carry out.
The only drawback of this alternative is employees may feel irritated, annoyed by the constant reminders
and they might also not be fully encouraged to do get the flu shot. There is possibility that they would
take the vaccine because they would have to and not that they want to.
6. Recommendation
Based on the analysis presented above, the most viable alternative for Evive Health is to launch small
groups of people and encourage them to take the flu shot through constant reminders. They might receive
flaks from some of the employees but atleast majority of the people would be vaccinated.
7. Contingency Plan
Incase the recommended plan does not work then the utility company can extend vaccination benefit to
employees family members as well.