Jim O'Gorman
Chief People Officer
Included Health
Episode 212
Unlock Talent: Your Healthcare Benefits Are a Strategic Advantage, Not a Cost
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleApril 30, 2025 · 12:35
Thesis
“HR leaders must move beyond outdated cost-centric approaches to employer-sponsored healthcare benefits, instead viewing them as a critical strategic lever for talent attraction, retention, and employee well-being, driven by clear values and innovative technology like AI to improve health outcomes and productivity.”
Show notes
American employers collectively spend over $700 billion annually on healthcare — and most of them are managing that spend with a 1950s-era playbook. Jim O'Gorman, Chief People Officer at Included Health, believes that's not just a cost problem. It's a leadership failure.
Jim's career has been shaped by a consistent through-line: follow where technology can change consumer behavior, and position HR to lead that change rather than react to it. At Included Health, he sits at the intersection of people strategy and health technology, advocating for a fundamental shift in how employers think about healthcare benefits. The typical strategy — rebidding insurance carriers every few years to chase short-term savings — is actively harmful to employees' health outcomes. The disruption of switching networks, the confusion it creates, the relationships it severs: these costs don't appear in the benefits budget but they're real. Jim argues for building a strategy anchored in values — knowing who you want to be as an employer — before making any tactical decisions about plan design or carriers.
He's equally focused on the humans behind benefits: the benefits leaders themselves. He describes them as "unsung heroes" caught between cost pressures and the complexity of navigating healthcare for a workforce that ranges from frontline employees to C-suite families. Pairing those leaders with strong AI tools — the "AI-assisted clinician" model — is his vision for what good looks like. And for organizations in the middle of M&A, he's emphatic: know your values before you merge, or you'll end up with a Frankensteined culture and no clear north star for any decision.
- Rethinking healthcare benefits as a talent differentiator — moving beyond cost management to genuine health outcomes
- Why carrier-switching disrupts more than it saves — and what to do instead
- Supporting benefits leaders — how CPOs can create better conditions for the HR function's most undervalued practitioners
- AI and clinician collaboration — how Included Health's model of AI-assisted care improves efficiency and outcomes
- Values clarity in M&A — why knowing your culture before an integration determines whether it succeeds
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What you'll take away
- 1Fundamentally rethink employer-sponsored healthcare benefits as a strategic differentiator for talent, moving beyond just managing costs to actively influencing better health outcomes.
- 2Recognize and empathetically support benefits leaders as 'unsung heroes' who navigate complex healthcare issues, providing them with strong partnership beyond just cost analysis.
- 3Establish and clearly articulate organizational values, especially during integrations, to guide critical decisions (e.g., remote work) and differentiate the company's approach.
- 4Proactively embrace and integrate AI tools into HR and clinical practices to enhance efficiency, deliver smarter care, and maximize employee insurance benefits.
- 5Challenge the status quo in benefits strategy by not relying on historical tactics; instead, collaborate with other leaders to drive transformative change in the American healthcare system.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Pushes back on the conventional wisdom that the only way to drive down healthcare costs is through disruptive carrier changes, advocating instead for solutions that prioritize employee health outcomes and experience over pure cost reduction.
- •Argues against a 'Frankensteined' approach to values during mergers and acquisitions, asserting that companies should instead take time to define new, unifying values for their future identity rather than attempting to combine old ones.
- •Challenges HR leaders to abandon the 'last 70 years of employer-sponsored benefits tactics and administrative actions as your future playbook,' urging a complete re-evaluation of how benefits are delivered and impact employees.
In Jim's words
“I've really been led by where technology is going to best change consumer behavior, and that's always motivated me throughout my career.”
This quote highlights Jim's forward-thinking career motivation driven by technological disruption and its impact on consumer behavior.
“It's disappointing that a lot of people have a shared experience of bad leadership, and I certainly can relate to that, but I turned that around for me and made sure that I don't create that space for people who work around me and with me.”
This reveals a personal, formative experience that shaped his empathetic and supportive leadership philosophy.
“Over $700 billion is spent by employees— employers via their health care program across America, making sure their employees have access to care. And over 50% of America is represented by employer health care sponsored programs.”
This statistic powerfully illustrates the immense financial impact and opportunity employers have to influence the U.S. healthcare system.
“Our benefits leaders, I often think that we— they go unnoticed in HR organizations. They are caught in the middle of the complexity of healthcare...”
This quote draws attention to the often-overlooked and challenging role of benefits leaders within HR departments.
“We believe that the clinician that partnered with strong AI tools is going to be the more efficient clinician, the smarter clinician, and is going to be the clinician of the future...”
This articulates Jim's vision for the future of healthcare, emphasizing the synergistic power of AI and human expertise.
“Know your values. Be really clear about your values... when you know who you are and you know your values, then you are able to figure out where you want to lead the way and where you want to differentiate versus where you want to follow.”
This provides actionable advice on how strong, clear values serve as a compass for leadership and organizational differentiation, particularly during periods of change.
The problems this episode addresses
- •**High & Ineffective Healthcare Costs:** Employers spend over $700 billion on healthcare, but current programs often fail to deliver optimal health outcomes or employee satisfaction, posing a significant financial and talent retention challenge.
- •**Benefits Leaders Overwhelmed & Undervalued:** Benefits leaders are caught between managing rising costs and navigating complex, confusing healthcare systems for employees (from frontline to CEO spouses), often without sufficient appreciation or empathetic leadership.
- •**Disruptive & Inefficient Carrier Changes:** The traditional practice of frequently rebidding insurance carriers to cut costs leads to disruptive network changes for employees, negatively impacting health outcomes and causing dissatisfaction.
- •**Outdated Healthcare Benefits Playbooks:** Many organizations are still operating with benefits strategies rooted in 1950s tactics, failing to adapt to modern employee needs, technological advancements, or the potential for benefits to be a key talent differentiator.
- •**Challenges in M&A Cultural Integration:** Post-merger, organizations struggle to unify disparate cultures and values, often resulting in a 'Frankensteined' approach rather than a cohesive new identity, hindering strategic decision-making.
- •**Hesitation in AI Adoption:** Some clinicians and organizations are resistant to fully integrating AI tools into daily practice, potentially missing out on significant gains in efficiency, smarter care delivery, and improved patient outcomes.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Dave has always been driven by where technology is going to best change consumer behavior
WSJD Live: How Technology Will Change Your Career
Jim: Corporate America can really influence how healthcare is delivered today
In the Elevator With Jim and Dave
Jim: The benefits leader is often overlooked in HR organizations
Unsung Hero of the Benefits Leader
Chief people officers need to support benefit leaders to drive down healthcare costs
Benefit Coordination: Chief People Officer's Support
At Included Health, we use AI to help clinicians provide virtual care
Including Health's Work with AI
Jim: Know your values. Be really clear about your values
Including Health's Culture Under Fire
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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