oordinating benefits for Cirque du Soleil can be as complicated as the somersaults
performed by acrobats in the troupe’s giant spinning German Wheel act.
How can an employer provide health insurance for workers who
travel 100 percent of the time? How should it calculate risk for employees whose
daily routines include fireworks, martial arts and hanging from ropes 50 feet off
the ground?
It’s all in a day’s work for Hélène Thibault, a senior benefits
manager for the avant-garde circus. Her background as an accredited actuary makes
her especially well suited to the job. It’s not the usual career path for actuaries,
the highly trained professionals who use math, statistics and finance theory to
calculate the business impacts of risk. But it’s one Thibault, 30, enjoys. It brings
imagination to a profession that’s typically black and white.
"Cirque du Soleil is a creative company, so working in benefits
can’t be that straightforward," she says. "We need to be creative and adapt to everything
the company is doing. We always work in the gray areas."
If the logistics of mounting Cirque du Soleil’s signature
big tent productions seem daunting, so is the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to keep
entertainers and other employees properly insured and protected. That task continues
to grow as the privately held Montreal entertainment enterprise adds to its eight
touring troupes, five resident shows and related projects.
On the road
In her role as senior benefits manager, Thibault is responsible for planning health
care coverage for a majority of Cirque du Soleil’s approximately 4,000 employees.
She is one of 70 employees on Cirque du Soleil’s HR team in Montreal, and her charges
include 1,600 employees in Montreal and 1,000 permanent expatriates—the performing
artists and support personnel who travel continuously around the world. Thibault
and her team of four assistants were also responsible for developing and financing
a health insurance plan for Cirque du Soleil employees in Las Vegas and Orlando,
Florida, where the company stages permanent shows at hotels. A stateside HR staff
administers it, however.
With such a diverse global workforce, one-size-fits-all benefits
are out of the question. Expats pose particular problems because they change addresses—and
often countries—every six to eight weeks. One of the first things Thibault did after
joining Cirque du Soleil in October 2006 was reorganize the company’s health insurance
coverage. Until then, the company had used one carrier for its U.S. employees and
a second for everyone else. But the setup caused problems.
When a tour moved from Europe to the United States, health
coverage couldn’t move with it, she explains.
Now, all expats are insured through an expat health plan from
Cigna International in Philadelphia that covers things like trips to walk-in clinics
and prescriptions. When the troupe sets up in a new location, Thibault’s staff sends
contact information for covered health care providers in the area to a tour services
supervisor, who gives the information to employees as needed.
Expat insurance doesn’t cover local workers for construction
and other manual labor crews that Cirque du Soleil expects to hire as it opens new
permanent shows in Tokyo, Macau and Dubai over the next three years. Instead, the
company will negotiate with local insurers for coverage and benefits that are typical
of the region, rather than match what expats or headquarters employees receive,
Thibault says.
Not a risky business
For a venture as risky as a circus, Cirque du Soleil’s accident rate isn’t out of
the norm, Thibault says. "For sure we have some accidents. Things happen, but probably
not as much as people think," she says.
In one such case in mid-November 2007, two performers in the
circus’ Zumanity show at the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas were hurt during
an aerial performance and taken to a local hospital. One performer was released
the next day and the other was still being treated for undisclosed injuries two
weeks later. At the time, a spokeswoman said all company emergency procedures had
been followed.
To mitigate risk, Cirque du Soleil sends a health and safety
team to inspect event sites and watch performers. If they deem something too dangerous,
they’ll suggest changes, Thibault says. The circus also follows government-mandated
workplace safety regulations in countries that have them, such as the United States.
But it’s not always easy.
"In some countries there’s no legislation that says you need
to provide workers’ comp, or sometimes there’s legislation but we’re not there long
enough to benefit from it. But we still want to offer coverage. So if there’s a
hole, we have Cigna cover it," she says.
Cirque du Soleil’s workers’ comp program is partially self-insured.
Each year, Thibault uses historical claims data and other factors to calculate how
much the company will pay per workers’ comp claim, a number the company doesn’t
disclose. Anything over that amount is covered by outside workers’ comp insurance,
also from Cigna.
Cirque du Soleil hasn’t encountered a major disaster, but
there have been scares. When Hurricane Katrina devastated Biloxi, Mississippi, in
fall 2005, Cirque du Soleil was in the final stages of prepping for a six-month
show that was to open there the following February. In a short time, the company
came up with a Plan B and sent the show to South America instead, Thibault says.
In the event that a show can’t go on, the circus carries cancellation
insurance. Since joining the company, Thibault has also begun planning for other
catastrophes. For example, she has used computer models to calculate how many days
of work the company’s employees would miss in the event of a worldwide outbreak
of the flu or another pandemic. "I don’t think anyone else in the HR department
could have built that," she says.
Even acrobats hang up their trapezes eventually, and to prepare
for that time, Cirque du Soleil offers artists and other personnel retirement plans:
a defined-contribution plan for Canadians and a 401(k) for U.S. workers and any
touring employees who work in the U.S. longer than six months, with Cirque du Soleil
matching contributions of those who participate.
As Thibault starts the second year in her post, she’s made
it a goal to continue studying the company’s workers’ comp and retirement plans.
And though she hasn’t traveled to see any of the circus’ roving ensembles yet, she
hopes to soon. When she does, there’s a good chance she’ll watch those spinning
wheels and trapeze artists while calculating how to best analyze the risks.
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