The Most Important Part of Enrollment

Benefits Communication May Be the Most Important Part of Enrollment

Your Entire Enrollment Strategy Hinges on These Four Things

You need to talk about it

You spend a lot of time on your benefits plans. You have internal meetings with stakeholders, get employee feedback, and meet with carrier reps and brokers.

Then, when it’s time to enroll, you’re working even more trying to make sure employees are educated and ready.

All of this work hinges on a critical activity: benefits communication.

A poor communication strategy will lead to employee confusion and low coverage utilization into which you’ve invested time and money. They must understand how their benefits work, so they appreciate the value of what you offer and can ensure their families are adequately protected. Benefits are a significant part of compensation packages and a valuable employee retention tool.

Understanding your employees

An effective communication plan is built on understanding your employees. Knowing their preferred method of communication will dictate how you inform them of their coverage options. And you can mix a variety of methods, including email, direct mail, phone messages, and more.

Communicating critical information

You and your team should think through what you need to communicate to employees. For example, if your enrollment is active, employees must be well aware of the consequences if they don’t take action.

If coverage has changed, or you’re offering a plan for this year only, employees need to know so it can be part of their decision-making process.

Research by Unum found that 87% of employees reviewed their benefits for 45-minutes or less before enrollment. You have s short window of opportunity to deliver information to employees, so make it count! And by communicating well, you may drive up the time employees spend reviewing their policies, which is good for your organization and your workforce.

Making your life (and communications) easier

Our team at Single Point Enrollment Solutions knows how to develop effective communication plans. We can work with you to create a strategy, so your employees are educated and prepared for open enrollment. Reach out to us to make benefits communication easier.