Richard Seltzer's
home page Publishing home
Articles
about DEC
mgmt memo
.
Volume 5, Number 7
________________________________
September/October 1986
Digital Active In
Development Of Corporation For Open Systems
Digital Acquires
Technology, Assets And People Of Trilogy Technology Corp.
Admiral Grace Hopper
Joins Digital
Butler Lampson Named
Corporate
Consulting Engineer
Four Of Digital’s
FY87 Goals Emphasized On 'Between The Lines’
Digital In U.S.
Begins Exempt Job Evaluation/Classification Project
Major Steps In The
JEC Project
Nearly 5,000
Employees Add Optional
Life Insurance, Improving The Plan's Financial Base
As part of its continuing effort to support
industry standards, Digital has been instrumental in the
development of an international standards organizÂation called the
Corporation for Open Systems (COS). Incorporated in March, 1986,
COS has approximately 60 member companies, and is in the midst of
a major membership drive.
"The goal of COS is to get users and vendors at
the senior executive level involved in the definition and
introduction of interoperable products that meet industry and
international standards. Members who are users state what they
need from a strategic perspective, and members who are vendors
focus on the interconnectivity standards that will expedite
solutions for these needs," explains Bill (BJ) Johnson, Digital's
vice president of the Networks and Communications Group, and a
member of COS' Executive Committee and chairman of its Membership
Committee. Bill hopes 40 additional companies will join by
January.
"With COS, we expect to expedite the acceptance
and implementation of industry interconnectivity standards.
Typical approaches to this have focused on technical or marketing
people who work on various committees of different standards
organizations. COS involves senior officers of companies who, as a
result of their positions, can make things happen more easily and
quickly," says BJ, who has been involved with COS from almost the
beginning.
There are three kinds of members. Each requires
a certain level of financial commitment as well as a commitment to
implement the standards decided upon by the corporation. The
membership level of Digital and other companies with revenues
exceeding $125 million requires a commitment of $200,000. Fees for
smaller companies are less.
The fees support a central staff, the work
required to determine what standard protocols to support, and the
development of test beds that are used by member companies to
verify interoperabilities against the standards. In addition,
publications activities and other programs are supported by COS .
"Digital has long had a commitment to
international standards for networkÂing. COS is the most recent
way we are expressing this commitment. Some time ago we made a
commitment to OSI standards and moved DECnet towards OSI since it
is very close to what we have. We have already announced OSI
compatible products such as OSI mail and transport products,"
states B J. Digital Engineering operations in Reading, England,
and the International Standards group in Geneva, Switzerland, were
instrumental in establishing Digital's position because of the
many geographies and political relationÂships international
companies must deal with in Europe.
The Executive Committee of COS functions as a
general operating body. It consists of seven members in addition
to the chairperson and vice chair. Membership rotates every few
years.
A Strategy Forum works with the president to
direct the research and develÂopment activities associated with
COS. Mahendra Patel, a corporate consultÂing engineer at Digital,
is a member of this forum. He attends each meetÂing, as does
Digital's Lynne Kershaw, senior engineering manager/OSI Program
manager, who is the alternate for Mahendra. She also headed a
subcommittee that looked at the relationships among the
SPAG-Special Promotion and Application Group (a group set up in
Europe to promote OSI standards), the Manufacturing Applications
Protocol, the Technical Office Protocol-MAP/TOP, and the National
Bureau of Standards. Tony Lauck, a corporate consulting engineer
at Digital, is a member of the Strategy Forum's subcommittee for
architecture, and Gary Robinson, manager, Corporate Standards, was
involved in the development of the Standards subcommittee of the
Strategy Forum.
Digital was involved in the development of COS
as early as last summer. Win Hindle, senior vice president of
Corporate Operations, attended the initial start-up meetings, and
Al Mullin, vice president of Corporate Relations, provided
organizational advice.
Digital has acquired copper/polyimide
interconnect and packaging technology from Trilogy Technology
Corporation for $12.75 million in cash. Digital will lease
fabrication and office space in facilities in Cupertino, Calif.,
and has acquired certain assets from Trilogy.
In addition, approximately 100 employees from
Trilogy Technology Corporation have joined Digital. This new
Digital operation is managed by Paul McEnroe, who had been
President of Trilogy Technology Corporation prior to the
acÂquisition. Paul reports to Bob Glorioso, vice president, High
Performance Systems.
This acquisition provides a technology base
which will help Digital provide its customers with
high-performance computer systems in the future.
Dr. Grace Murray Hopper, the Rear Admiral who
last month retired as the U.S. Navy's oldest officer on active
duty, has begun a new career with Digital as a senior consultant
working out of the Washington, D.C., office.
Her duties will include representing Digital at
industry forums and sympoÂsia, making speeches that focus on
government issues and ADP environments, serving as a
representative on computer industry committees and at engiÂneering
forums, writing and publishing computer systems/engineering papers
on selected subjects, and participating in Digital's liaison
programs with educational institutions.
"We are very pleased Admiral Hopper has
accepted a position at Digital," Harvey Weiss, vice president,
U.S. Sales Operations, said. "She is a remarkable woman and a true
pioneer in the computer field. Although well past normal
retirement age (79 years old), she has accomplished so much and
experienced so much that younger people who associate with her
will have the opportunity to learn at a rapid pace."
Since 1952, Admiral Hopper has published more
than 50 papers and articles on computer software and programming
languages. She is a leader in the developÂment of the COBOL
computer language and has served on the ANSI X3.4 CommitÂtee on
the standardization of computer languages. She is a member of the
CODASYL Executive Committee.
Butler Lampson has been promoted to Corporate
Consulting Engineer, reporting to Bob Taylor, director, Systems
Research Center (SRC), Palo Alto, Calif.
As one of the first employees of the SRC,
Butler helped to establish and develop the Center and has since
served as a consultant to various engineerÂing organizations,
contributing to product development and enhancement. Butler has
played a key role in continuing research to support the company's
strategy in distributed personal computing and accompanying
software develÂopment . He has been a leader in the design and
development of personal disÂtributed computing, including
Ethernet, Alto (the first high-performance personal computer) and
BRAVO (the first what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor).
Butler is a member of the Association for
Computing Machinery, the National Academy of Engineering and the
International Federation for Information Processing.
"We want to be successful and we want to
survive. It is said that one of our large competitors has a goal,
a theme which says, 'Deck DEC'. You can be sure that all our
competitors are out to do what we are doing and to beat us. The
way we can solidify our position — win this contest — is to be
successful in our goals. They include improving customer
satisfaction,
increasing our profitability, increasing our
market share, and improving and implementing our product
strategy," stated Ken Olsen, president, at the beginning of the
fourth edition of "Between the Lines," Digital's quarterly
satellite communications program, which was broadcast live on
August 19. Other program guests were Jim Osterhoff, vice
president, Finance; Jack Smith, senior vice president of
Manufacturing, Engineering and Marketing; and Jerry Witmore, vice
president of Industry Marketing.
"To understand customers, you simply have to
understand yourself," explained Jack Smith. "Selling to a customer
involves understanding what the customer needs and certainly
providing the customer with the solution to his or her problem.
The customer wants the solution and wants to be sure the
salesÂperson understands the problem well enough to provide the
solution. The customer also wants the product to be delivered when
it was promised, and wants the product to be reliable.
"Customer satisfaction isn't much more
complicated than these things: understand the customer's need,
provide the solution if you have it (if you don't have the
solution, don't sell it), deliver a product when you promise it,
and make sure it doesn't break. And, if it does break, make sure
you have the resources to fix it.
"A good part of that reliability issue is in
the design of the product itself, as well as the specifications
for the components. So, the close coupling between Engineering and
Manufacturing means getting our product development people to
better understand how they can design reliability into the product
and at the same time, getting our manufacturing people to
underÂstand the specs of the components as well as helping our
engineers spec components so we end up with a higher-reliability
product."
In response to a question about Digital's
marketing goals, Jerry Witmore explained, "We want to increase our
market share. We have a stronger product portfolio than ever
before, and now is the time to deliver what we believe are the
strategic, important products for the long-term and to increase
our position with those customers. I discovered one of my favorite
marketing slogans many years ago in Northern California. It was
written on the side of a pink cement truck: 'Find a need and fill
it'. That's what marketing is all about — to focus on those needs
that Digital can fill, then carry it out. We're spending a lot of
time working on the strategic side of it, deÂfining which
customers, applications, industries, and geographies to target.
That portfolio will enable us to focus on increasing our market
share."
Part of Digital's strength is reflected in the
financial results reported for FY86. According to Jim Osterhoff,
"We set some fairly aggressive goals for ourselves. We said we
wanted to improve our profit margins, which meant breaking a
four-year declining trend, and we needed to do that in a period
when industry growth rates were low. We succeeded very well. We
beat the budget in revenue for the first time in seven years, and
we met our cost budget. So our profit margins improved from 6.7%
to 10.9% in one year, which is a major accomplishment.
"This doesn't mean our profit margins are where
we need them to be. It’s tremendous progress in one year, but
historically we have been in the 16-18% range. We should not take
our eye off IBM's typical range of 20-24%. But first, let's get to
16-18% and then we'll start looking at 20-24%," added J im.
"I think that one of the most important factors
from a marketing point of view as well as a profit point of view
is bringing your products into the market, which means bringing
them in on time and at a point when you can demand a higher price
and make a higher profit," said Jerry. "We have significantly
improved our ability to design products to meet the needs of our
customers and then get them into the market. This has given us the
ability to manage and drive prices to get the return. That's a
credit to our engineering organization."
Jack Smith added that, "Three or four years
ago, we set one priority for ourselves. At that time, as we all
remember, we had tired products; and we knew that in the coming
years the major portion of our revenue would depend on the
introduction of new products into the marketplace. So getting
those products to market was our number one priority. It's
important to pick only one priority, because if you pick two
priorities, people start questioning which is the main priority.
"As we look out over the next couple of years,
it is important that we complete what we have started. Our current
emphasis, which is layered on basic product strategy, is to
develop the applications that meet the cusÂtomer needs. That's why
I think Pete Smith's marketing group and the inÂdustry marketing
groups are going to be so key to our success in the next couple of
years. They are the conduit between the customer and the product
development groups. It's their job to make sure we are developing
the comÂplete solution for the customer, that we are not missing a
piece of software here, or a particular interconnect there,"
emphasized Jack.
In terms of targeting markets, Jerry explained
that the first thing Digital has to do is determine how the market
is divided in terms of industries, applications and products.
"We're still in the process of reviewing indusÂtries in terms of
where we want to be strategically in five to ten years," he noted.
"As an example, life insurance companies and
food companies represent a new industry focus. Within service
industries, which are Bob Hughes' focus, sits the life insurance
companies. The food companies are in my area of responsiÂbility —
basic industries. The insurance and food industries are extremely
large in terms of potential revenue for computers, and we have
virtually no presence in either. About a year ago we started
analyzing them. Then we started calling on executives in those
industries to first tell them who we were, what we thought we had
to offer and why we thought we ought to be part of their long-term
plan in information technology. Win Hindle was heavily involved in
making calls on insurance companies and helping us develop our
strategy. I have been doing the same thing with food companies.
Now we’re already piloting projects in a half-dozen insurance
companies and a halfÂdozen food companies as a direct result of
this focus. Over time, I'm conÂfident we will do millions of
dollars of business with those two industries.
We're trying to take this same systematic
approach -- analyze and underÂstand the market; find a need and
fill it — with the other industries," continued Jerry.
A caller from Houston, Texas, requested
information about Digital's long-term strategy for the UNIX
operating system. In response, Ken Olsen said, Digital's long-term
strategy is to support UNIX. "For those people who want the best
proprietary system, we offer VMS. For those who want an industry
standard, we offer UNIX through ULTRIX. We offer additional
features for ULTRIX, and we'll keep offering more because it’s
easy to offer some of the things that we developed for VMS.
"Part of the reason for going to ULTRIX was
that some people want an industry-standard system. To our
surprise, offering ULTRIX turned out to be an effective way to
market VMS because by using this industry-standard entry point, we
are able to encourage people to look at both systems, and they are
able to see the values of our rich VMS environment."
An employee from the Mid-Atlantic states asked
Jack Smith about the imporÂtance of maintaining high level up-time
when, in fact, there is a shortage of some VAX 8000-series
computer parts. Jack explained that the 8000-series products have
been selling beyond Digital's expectations and that the probÂlem
of spare parts for the field was already being addressed by
Logistics Operations.
In response to a question about where our
ability to interconnect our products falls in the current product
strategy, Jack said, "It's the name of the game. I think it's our
competitive advantage relative to the rest of the industry. This
isn't something new that we recently decided to develop. When we
first became involved in the concept of distributed processing, we
knew that distributed processing was going to depend on our
ability to interconnect whatever pieces of the product strategy we
would develop over time. Interconnectivity or networking is the
glue which holds our whole product strategy together."
"It is also a key part of our business
strategy," added Ken. "Before we did networking, we built every
peripheral for every central processor. That led to an enormous
amount of engineering work, and inventory and spare parts. Today
we build everything for Ethernet and each computer ties to
Ethernet. This means we need only one of each peripheral, and we
cut down the invenÂtory, the engineering, and the maintenance.
Everything is easier. So, one of the reasons for this improvement
is our interconnect strategy."
"I think that there are an awful lot of things
that are responsible for the market success we are having. One is
all the favorable press that we are getting. It’s introducing us
to some new customers and opening doors that aren’t normally
open," emphasized Jerry. "The two unique features you read about
with respect to Digital are our communication capability and our
finÂancial progress."
Added Ken, "There is another interesting thing
about strategy, and it's something we don't say enough. For any
organization, for any person, there is a normal tendency to try to
be like everyone else and, every time we've done that, we've
gotten into trouble. Every time we’ve been successful, it’s when
we set about to do something we believed in even though the rest
of the world didn't do it. When we introduced the minicomputer, it
was so unique it was very difficult to sell, and we were ridiculed
and laughed at. As you remember, three or four years aao we were
ridiculed because we didn't say that the personal computer could
do everything for the world, we said that networking was the
important thing. That was a hard time, but I would much rather be
selling networking today than personal computers. The imporÂtant
thing is that we know what is best and stick with it."
Responding to a question about Digital's
workstation strategy, Jack Smith said, "We are committed to the
workstation area. We have been saying for some time that we will
have a VAX on a desk and we will. We intend to imÂprove our
current graphics relative to a new introduction and indeed, we
will have products that will cover the total spectrum — the low
end, the mid-range and the high end. We intend to be a force in
the workstation market within this fiscal year."
Ken added that Digital was slow in getting into
the workstation market because our strategy was to make
workstations based on VAX. "We didn't start until we had the VAX
microprocessor. Our machines are those based on VAX, because it's
so easy to do the software and because it does the computation so
well. This is our contribution."
Jay Atlas has been appointed U.S. Volume
Sales manager, reporting to Chick Shue, vice president, U.S.
Sales. Jay is responsible for the overall perÂformance of the U.S.
Sales Organization in achieving its volume certificaÂtions and
ships for all of the Digital Reseller Channels. He joined Digital
in 1972, served as European Marketing Manager for Field Service
from 1974 to 1977, and has had sales management responsibilities
since 1984.
Dileep Bhandarkar has been promoted to
senior consulting engineer, reportÂing to John Gilbert, manager,
Systems Engineering. As technical director of Mid-Range Systems,
Dileep has overall responsibility for management and control of
the VAX architecture, as well as for major aspects and elements of
the VAXBI and CI architectures. He has been with Digital for eight
years.
George Borrero has been named group
Personnel manager of Semiconductor OperÂations (SCO), reporting to
Bob Palmer, vice president, SCO, and Les Koch, group Personnel
manager, Low End Systems and Technologies. George, who joined
Digital in 1976 , has been the group Personnel manager for GIA
ManuÂfacturing and Engineering for over seven years.
Doug Clark has been promoted to senior
consulting engineer for the Advanced VAX Systems Engineering
group, reporting to Don McInnis, Advanced VAX Engineering Group
manager. Doug joined Digital in 1980 as a member of the System
Architecture group. From 1982 he worked with the Nautilus group as
part of the effort that led to the VAX 8800, 8700, 8550 and 8500
products.
Peter Hawker has been named Corporate
Employee Benefits manager, reporting to Carol Burke,
manager, Corporate Personnel and F&A Personnel. [eter
previously worked in the Treasury organization, where he was
Compensation and manager. Prior to taht, he was the European
Benefits manager.
Paul Kampas has joined Corporate
Marketing Communications as manager, Corporate Competitive
Analysis, reporting to Peter Jancourtz, manager, Corporate
marketing Services. Paul joined Digital in 1976 as a performance
analyst, coordinating IBM equipment bench-marking and tear-downs.
He has been the corporate IBM competitive "watcher," and has
wroked as a strategic planning manager in Engineering and
Marketing.
George Shea has been appointed as
Digital's first Director of General Ser- vices Industry Marketing.
George will be responsible for marketing DigiÂtal's products and
services to the data services, airlines, retail/whole- sale,
consultants, and legal industries. He will report to Bob Hughes,
vice president, Service Industry Marketing. Since joining Digital
in February, ^985, George has been Director of the
Telecommunications Industry Marketing Group. John Hart will be the
acting director of this organization until a successor to George
is named.
Kevin Sullivan has has been appointed to
the new position responsible for Personnel in the Corporate
Operations, Corporate Finance and Corporate AdÂministration
organizations. Kevin will report to Win Hindle, senior vice
president, Corporate Operations; Jim Osterhoff, vice president,
Corporate Finance; and John Sims, vice president, Personnel and
Administration. He will represent the Personnel needs of the
departments to the Personnel Management Committee, on which he
will serve as a full member. Kevin has held a variety of
management assignments in Personnel since joining Digital in*
January 1976. These positions include Personnel manager for
Europe, manager of Corporate Compensation and Benefits as well as
his most recent job as the U.S. Field Personnel manager.
Rebecca Warshawsky has joined Digital
Video Network, reporting to Don Elias, Media Communications Group
Manager. Rebecca will be responsibel for all program activities,
including the development of new programming. She comes to Digital
from Wang Laboratories, where she was manager of the Wang
Television Network, which serves more than 90 sites worldwide.
As one of its efforts to remain competitive for
its people as well as for its products, Digital has initiated a
project known as Job Evaluation and Classification (JEC). Being
implemented in the U.S., this project is tarÂgeted for completion
by the end of calendar year 1987.
JEC's objective is to make certain Digital
maintains a consistent, credible, and responsive method of
evaluating jobs based on content and responsibiliÂties —
independent of the performance of the individual currently filling
the job. It will culminate in a new method -- evaluation system --
for obÂjectively analyzing employee work. This new system will
give managers the tools needed to appropriately assign — classify
— employee work into a position that fits within an overall
framework of jobs.
The U.S. Compensation/Benefits Committee
(USCBC), representing line manageÂment across the U.S., chartered
the project after management studies indiÂcated a need for
improvement in the effectiveness and credibility of DigiÂtal's
current job evaluation and classification processes.
"Our goal is to have a method that consistently
delivers externally compeÂtitive and internally equitable
salaries," explains Harvey Weiss, chairman of the USCBC and vice
president of U.S. Sales Operations. He notes that JEC will
primarily focus on the U.S. exempt population (Wage Class 4
employees). "By targeting this population, we will be dealing with
the largest portion of the work force and the group that has
experienced the most rapid growth. When JEC has been completed and
the new model implemented, we will examine whether such a project
is appropriate for non-exempt jobs," he adds.
The
Current Situation
Digital's rapid growth and organizational
changes have resulted in the need for more consistent methods of
evaluating jobs. JEC will minimize confusion, support
inter-department transfers, and facilitate the assignment of
employÂees to jobs.
The implementation of a new job evaluation and
classification model will enÂable Digital to:
o maintain an ongoing and consistent method for
evaluating jobs based on an objective analysis of work
responsibilities;
o improve employee and management confidence in
the appropriateness of internal job-to-job pay relationships;
o improve the process of classifying employees
into appropriate jobs;
o facilitate the transfer of employees between
organizations;
o identify when work differences are
significant enough to justify different salary ranges;
o make better use of market comparisons to
determine appropriate salary ranges, and
o establish more consistent information for use
in job descriptions.
JEC will address these issues while
establishing a new method for evaluating work that is consistent
across Digital organizations. Since the final tools from the
project won't be available until after December 1987, JEC isn't
expected to have any effect on employees before that time.
Line
Management Role
Line management's direct support and
involvement is needed in order to make certain the new Job
Evaluation and Classification process is objective and consistent.
As a result, the project process has been specifically designed to
include the close involvement of line managers.
"To remain useful and credible over the long
run, a process for job evaluaÂtion and classification has to
reflect Digital’s culture and business needs," says John Sims,
vice president, Personnel and Administration. "That's why line
managers are involved in each critical step. Their perÂspectives
will make a better end product; one that all managers will have
confidence in and be able to support. Personnel is responsible for
the development process and technical support for the new system
and for enÂsuring its ongoing integrity."
JEC, which is being introduced to all
employees, has received the endorseÂment of senior management
teams, including the Executive Committee. Many presentations have
been made and others are scheduled to make certain the program is
understood.
Various committees have been established to
make certain the project is objective, thorough and represents the
cross-functional needs of the company:
o The U.S. Compensation/Benefits Committee
chartered JEC and, in partnership with the Personnel Management
Committee, is overseeing all of its major components and progress.
o 19 management committees, representing all
job functions,•have been asÂsembled to evaluate approximately 300
representative — benchmark — jobs using Digital-specific standards
called evaluation factors. To provide these committees with
sufficient job knowledge, approximately 2,000 emÂployees in these
benchmark jobs will complete a questionnaire in October.
o A committee of the chairpeople of the 19
management teams will then merge their data cross-functionally.
o Personnel task forces have been identified to
address market analysis, systems, communications, training, and
policies and procedures issues.
o Outside consulting resources are in place for
technical guidance throughÂout the project.
Personnel will integrate JEC with existing
management systems such as the ^Salary Management System and the
Total Employment Staffing System. They will monitor EEO and
Affirmative Action goals to ensure that the company's commitment
and values in these areas are preserved as JEC progresses.
PerÂsonnel will also automate appropriate steps for ease of use,
information handling, and maintenance.
This October about 2,000 employees representing
300 U.S. jobs will be asked to complete a questionnaire that will
elicit information about the work they do. The jobs have been
selected because they can be priced in the external marketplace
and/or they are filled by large numbers of Digital employees,
often from different organizations. Employees doing these jobs
were selected, with the assistance of their managers, to make
certain they and have been in their positions sufficiently long to
understand the work.
In December, the 19 functional management
teams, which will receive formal training, will review the
questionnaires completed by the employees. From the information in
the quetionnaires, they will evaluate the work being done by using
Digital-specific standdards -- evaluation factors -- such as
effect on financial results, complexity of decison making, the
qualifications for the job, etc.
After
the standard requirements and work for the jobs ahve been
determined functionally, and the teams have organized the jobs
according to each evaluation factor, team chairpeople will meet
in Q3 to integrate their work. As the final step in JEC's
development phase, job hierarchies and salary ranges will be
establilshed and an evaluation and classification model will be
built and automated.
The implementation phase of JEC will include a
multiple-choice, job-profile questionnaire that will be designed
after the evaluation and classification model has been completed.
A large number of the remaining U.S. exempt popuÂlation will
complete this questionnaire, which will provide the information
needed for classification.
Ongoing
Communication Is Planned
To help make certain that all U.S. employees
know about JEC, within the next couple weeks, local internal
newsletters will publish articles, and DECWORLD will include
information about the project. But, it is the responsibility of
managers and supervisors to make certain that employees are
informed.
As the project progresses, additional
information will be communicated through presentations to
management adn articles in newsletters. Local Personnel
departments will give periodic updates to their management teams.
By involving line management in the development
effort, and increasing the communnication of compensation
information, Digital expects to improve manager and emplyee
awareness and, in turn, increase confidence in the way Digital
evaluates work and classifies employees.
Participation among eligible U.S. employees
increased from 53% to 61% during the Optinonal Life Insurance open
enrollment held in June. The plan now has more younger members and
more members with higher coverage options. These changes, and the
new age-based rate scale, have brought the cost of insuring
Digital's work force in line with the expense.
Since the Optional Life Insurance plan is
self-supporting, it pays claims from funds accumulated through
payroll deductions. For several years the plan paid more in claims
than it collected in premiums. Now, with a new membership and
coverage mix, the program should remain financially secure for the
foreseeable future.
During open enrollment, younger employees who
may have greater family reÂsponsibilities increased coverage more
than older employees. People who traditionally neglect to have
life insurance (women and employees under age 35) added or
increased coverage in greater numbers than employees in the other
groups combined. Over 11,000 people took maximum coverage (5x
salary) making that choice the most popular coverage option.
In addition, over 14,000 families enrolled in
the Dependent Life Insurance program introduced during open
enrollment. This means that about half of Digital's employees who
have»dependents chose group coverage for their spouse and
children. More than 10,000 of those families chose the highest
benefit option—$30,000 coverage for a spouse and $9,000 for each
child. Offered to employees at no charge until October, this
coverage has already provided insurance proceeds to several
families.