Ed Ligonde's emphasis, he says, is not just on employee benefits but on the benefits of being an employee. (Photo: Jonah Light)
 | The 2021 Broker of the Year will be announced at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo, August 16-18 in San Diego. The winner will be further profiled in our September issue. |
When 2020's COVID-19 lockdowns began, Edwige Ligonde's brokerage was already working from home.
"We had kind of a dress rehearsal for the pandemic because we were remodeling our office and had sent everybody home," he says. "We thought it was going to be a two-week or three-week thing, and then we'd be back to normal. As I learned more about the severity of the situation, my mindset shifted."
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Creating opportunities out of challenges is a lesson that Ligonde has learned from past experiences. As a young man, he suffered a set of stress fractures that derailed a promising soccer career. Although he was a rising star at UCLA at the time, Ligonde had to reset his sights on a business career. He quickly landed a plum internship at Northwestern Mutual; eventually that led to his career as a benefits advisor.
Today, Ligonde is the vice president of employee benefits & technology at Nielsen Benefits Group, based in Westlake Village, California. Ligonde has been a key player at the rapidly growing firm, bringing in more than $1 million in revenues in his first year.
But he still remembers that shy 20-year-old who suddenly had to reinvent himself. "It took a couple years for me to get my feet under me," he says. "Eventually, I took a strong internal look and said, 'I really need to stop trying to be other people and focus on marketing the heck out of what I'm good at.' Then I started to figure it out."
Photo by Jonah Light "I took a strong internal look and said, 'I really need to stop trying to be other people and focus on marketing the heck out of what I'm good at.'"
The pandemic year presented challenges to all brokerages, but Ligonde immediately began to research how he could help his clients in a time of crisis. He noticed that normal emails from his employer clients dropped off sharply.
"They were focused on how to help their employees work from home—they were trying to figure it out just as we were," he says. "I thought 'Maybe it's not all about the insurance plan right now; maybe we can focus on small things like how FSAs and HSAs could now be used for over-the-counter drugs under the CARES Act.' Something very small, but it was completely missed by a lot of employers." The firm began an informational push to reach out to clients and help them address the problems they were facing.
"Everyone handles times of crisis differently; there are going to be people who view it as an opportunity, and there are those who are just going to hunker down and ride out the storm," Ligonde says. "What we tried to do was be the people who could adapt to the situation."
It was a year of change on many levels, Ligonde adds. "What was important to us was to create a safe space to talk. The pandemic brought out more than just how people felt about the virus. There were social justice issues, political issues. We learned a lot about each other, about ourselves, and about our world. So, I wanted to ensure that our team had a safe space to voice their issues and concerns as much as possible."
The death of George Floyd raised issues that Ligonde has been dealing with for his entire career. He noted that when he began his career, he stopped using his full first name, Edwige, and just used "Ed" in business interactions. "I changed my name, and all of the sudden companies were emailing me," he says. "There are people who have more opportunities just because they have a more normal-sounding name—and look what I just said: 'more normal-sounding.'"
Such bias is pervasive, Ligonde says, but adds that recognizing the problem is not about making people feel bad, it's about realizing the impact that bias can have. "Bias exists in all of us, but it is something that can be worked on," he says. "But it takes intention."
Racial justice issues are one thing employers and workers often talk about today; generational differences are another. Ligonde says that he is like other millennials, in that he was raised in a digital world. "I hate paper," he says. "I'm like that, and I think other millennials are like that. What I appreciate about our generation and younger generations is that people have less and less patience. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! Because we're in this digital age, we're used to doing things more quickly."
Nielsen Benefits has worked with employers to deliver benefits information via text messaging—not a perfect fit for everyone, but one that had clear advantages at a time when so many workers were working remotely. Ligonde said a recent project focused on texting employees allowed companies to deliver bite-sized pieces of benefits information to employees. The bonus was that it was a great way to communicate with employees who were working remotely.
TJ Thinakaran, founder of EZ Texting, is a client of Nielsen Benefits who also worked with Ligonde on that texting project. Thinakaran said that as an advisor, Ligonde always comes up with creative solutions for clients. He notes that Ligonde both increased the benefit package his company was able to offer and saved the company money. "He was a superb negotiator in making sure we didn't pay any more than we needed to," he says. "Ed was very effective; he was a partner who understood that a big part of culture is making people feel secure and feel like the employer has their back."
Ligonde has a favorite phrase: His emphasis, he says, is not just on employee benefits but on the benefits of being an employee. This approach is less top-down and more employee-centered, with an eye toward a holistic approach to benefits.
"For a long time I've been preaching it's all about the employee experience," he says. "The pandemic was a sort of catalyst to make clear that employee benefits weren't just about insurance. Employers now have the opportunity to create the ultimate employee experience."
Part of the change going on with employees, Ligonde says, is a re-assessment of whether their job is making them happy. "That's a good thing; you want people to see their work as not just a job. But it's going to come with challenges," he says. "A lot of employees don't just want a job; they want a place that makes them feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves."
Benefits advisors have the tools and knowledge to help businesses create such a place, according to Ligonde. "Employers have an incredible opportunity to enrich and enhance the lives of their employees," he says. "Many people spend most of their waking hours at work; if we're expecting them to give their best selves to work each day, then I think we need to provide them with the tools and resources so that they can enrich their personal lives as much as possible. It's not just about a paycheck."
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