Cris Ward knows a company’s success hinges on its employees. He also knows that benefits are vital to longer-term employee success and happiness. “It’s very important that employees understand that Domtar makes a significant investment to the cost of benefits so that they can have some level of financial stability as it relates to taking care of the family,” says Ward, manager of US health and welfare benefits at Domtar.
Ward came to Domtar in 2020 with twenty-five years of benefits experience that he’d gained at Cree, Family Dollar, Polymer Group, and Johnson Controls Inc. In his role at Domtar, he is responsible for management of the benefits in the US, as well as helping to set strategy, ensuring that the plans are compliant for Domtar’s US locations.
In his six years at Domtar, Ward has championed strategic improvements and program efficiencies, both of which are grounded in thoughtful analysis and a commitment to meaningful change. Internally, Ward ensures Domtar employees are aware of the benefits available to them, using corporate communications and HR business partners to educate employees. Externally, he ensures that Domtar’s benefits partners are providing the level of service he expects and employees have come to enjoy.
“Cris is raising the bar for how HR and benefits can truly serve employees at Domtar, and we value the opportunity to support the standard he’s setting,” said Carey McKenzie, chief strategy officer at Businessolver. “His leadership challenges all of us to think differently, and together with his team, we’re helping translate that commitment into experiences that make a real difference for employees.”
“We have quite a number of employees working long shifts. If they’re having issues, often they don’t have time to chase down an issue,” he explains. “So, it’s important that the service they get from our external partners allows the issues to be quickly resolved as opposed to requiring multiple calls or emails to resolve. We want to make sure employees are taken care of.”
In 2022, after two years at Domtar, Ward set out to “tidy up the house,” which included addressing the shortcomings of one of Domtar’s vendors. “We had a partner, a vendor, that was having difficulty meeting and providing a level of service that we would expect,” Ward says.
He embarked on a project to determine how to elevate the level of service. For the next year he and his team, in a partnership with the HR shared services team and the vendor itself, identified areas for improvement. “To their credit, the vendor was very open and honest about their shortcomings. We were able to identify some areas that we immediately needed to attack in terms of who was responsible for our account on that side,” Ward says.
Ultimately, he convinced the vendor to assign a new set of partners, a move that improved services considerably. “The annual enrollment for 2023 was the highest score, or highest rated open enrollment that we had in some time. We had a strong partner who was more technical, and had a keen understanding of customer service,” Ward says. Domtar has continued on that path ever since.
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More recently, Ward was a key member of a restructuring project to harmonize Domtar’s legacy companies, a project that started in 2024 and continues to this day. Following acquisitions in 2021 and 2023, Domtar comprises three legacy businesses: Paper Excellence, Domtar Corporation, and Resolute Forest Products. The goal of the harmonization project was to evaluate the benefits across the three companies and identify opportunities to harmonize them in terms of vendors and plan design.
“We went through an extensive RFP during that time looking at all the vendors on the health and welfare side,” Ward says. By the second quarter of 2024, Domtar had its carriers and a plan design. The second half of 2024 found Ward and his team working with the administration partners to update systems and stand up its annual enrollment project for all US-based employees. Domtar’s harmonization efforts continue.
Ward considers himself an approachable leader whose door is always open and is quick to roll up his sleeves. Because he does not typically delegate work to team members, he is not a micromanager. “I trust that the people that work for me know their jobs until there’s any indication that they need some help. And if that indeed is the case, I’m quick to jump in and figure out how we can help improve their performance,” Ward says.
Looking back on his thirty-plus years working in benefits, Ward says he wouldn’t be where he is today without others in the benefits space who were his champions and recognized his potential. “I just kind of fell into benefits because I needed a job,” says Ward, whose degree was in radio and TV/ mass communications. “A company gave me an opportunity to work in a benefits customer service department. And that’s where I just really cut my teeth. Whether I can personally provide members of my team with the next opportunity or at least be able to provide them with the knowledge that they can move on to the next opportunity, I don’t want to inhibit anyone’s growth, even if they may be part of my team.”
Businessolver partners with businesses to transform their benefits administration and engagement. Our market-leading technology delivers empathetic service by anticipating and responding to our clients’ needs—and helping them prepare for the future of work, HR, and benefits. We help our clients develop and administer modern benefits programs designed to engage employees, drive better wellbeing outcomes, minimize risk, and maximize healthcare and benefits investment. Founded by HR professionals, Businessolver’s unwavering service-oriented culture and secure SaaS platform provide measurable success in its mission to provide complete client delight.
