Employer focus
Enrollment messages: Too many to be helpful?
How many benefits do you offer to your employees? Now think about the number of materials and messages you or your benefits providers send them about each benefit. Do the math and you may find your employees drowning in a sea of messages that were supposed to help, not overwhelm, them.
These best practice tips can help you simplify enrollment messages and, hopefully, improve outcomes.
Keep it simple
So many benefits, so little time. Enrollment season comes and goes quickly, so employees need to know at a glance what their benefits are and easily evaluate their value. Each communication should answer three questions:
- What has changed?
- What do I need to do?
- Who do I call with questions?
Every benefit has worth
Just because there have been no changes to a benefit since the previous enrollment doesn’t mean there is nothing to say. A change in an employee’s life circumstances (new home, salary increase, family addition, medical diagnosis, aging parents, child off to school) may create the perfect timing for him or her to hear about a particular benefit.
Challenge your providers to dig deep and find one or two “did you know?” messages to help employees better understand their benefit offerings. And don’t forget family members who are often driving or participating in benefits decisions. One employer, for example, hosts a benefits “open house” and invites spouses, children and retirees to attend.
Rinse and repeat
Don’t assume one notice is enough to prompt action. Take a page from an advertiser’s playbook and repeat, repeat, repeat. Given all of the distractions in an average employee’s day, it can take multiple tries to break through the clutter. Make sure “action required by” dates are prominent.
What’s new under the sun?
Everyone likes to hear about something new. Make sure your methods for delivering the message offer something new as well. Look to your broker and providers to prep you on the latest techniques, such as:
- E-mail blasts integrated with personalized web pages (called PURLS)
- Intranet banners
- Interactive kiosks
- Online resource center for all enrollment materials
- “YouTube-like” recorded presentations
- Internal blogs, Tweets, wikis
- Benefit avatar spokespersons
Benefits spotlight
Consider breaking from tradition and instead of sending out the usual enrollment packet, adopt the “spotlight” method of benefits education. Determine the end date of the enrollment period. Each week leading up to final enrollment, shine a light on a specific benefit and the opportunities or important news related to it. The spotlight approach not only allows you to give targeted messages about specific benefits, but also releases the communication in drips rather than a deluge.
Here is a sample spotlight timeline:
| Focus on wellness program: | Week of October 4 |
| Focus on dental/vision: | Week of October 11 |
| Focus on medical: | Week of October 18 |
| Focus on life insurance: | Week of October 25 |
| Enrollment complete: | November 5 |
We’re here to help
We collaborate with clients to select communication tools that will be most effective in prompting action among your employees. We have proven capability in producing and sustaining high levels of participation in supplemental and voluntary group life insurance plans. For more information, contact your regional sales manager or client relationship advisor.
Resources
Getting your message across. March 27, 2008.
Coping with open enrollment. August 2, 2010.
Open enrollment for 2010 will be different. September 2, 2009.
Streamlining the open enrollment process. April 2, 2009.
