Employers challenged to prepare benefits communications initiatives
Q2 of 2019 just ended, yet some employers are already finalizing plan design and preparing 2020 enrollment communications. For most companies, however, the struggle is real to design plans while preparing for enrollment. In fact, an Employee Benefits Adviser whitepaper, titled Open Enrollment Readiness Benchmark, reaffirmed the struggle. [link in footer] It’s a great whitepaper and we encourage you to read it, but there’s a story within the story. Per the whitepaper, plan design readiness is high, yet readiness for communications continues to be very low. Let’s dive in and discuss strategies to improve communications readiness.
Dedicated benefits landing pages are important
Let’s begin by drawing a connection to marketing and advertising best practices. Marketing strategists regularly recommend an outbound content strategy to encourage customer consideration of a product or service. An outbound content strategy routinely consists of timed, themed, outbound communications distributed to an audience, with the intent being to inform, educate, and encourage visiting a landing page website. HR teams need to consider similar tactics. Why? Employees are your “audience,” and by providing targeted content and benefits-specific landing pages, they are more likely to be engaged and aware of key messages from HR.
To begin, when we say landing pages, we don’t mean ben-admin systems or HRIS platforms. Based on our research, these platforms prioritize the nuts and bolts of daily HR transactional needs, while offering minimal engagement opportunities and a complex user experience.
Begin your search for a benefits landing page with technology that allows you to post and share engaging media with employees and their spouses. We strongly recommend video be a top priority because of its ability to visually-articulate concepts and rapidly share ideas. According to a recent poll by streaming media company Kaltura, 98% of employers believe video helps employees learn better and faster.
Moreover, employees and spouses need videos and decision support that’s accessible at any time, so make sure your landing page technology is accessible on any device without logging in. That doesn’t mean you need to remove your benefits education in your ben-admin or HRIS system. You don’t! Consider using both, and link your new landing page from these resources. Remember, when it comes to your benefits information, having open access sites for employees (and spouse) provides a much easier path with less hoops to jump through. Afterall, this is not personal information, but rather key information about benefits, so get it out there and make it easy for employees and spouse to access.
Finally, the technology needs to simplify HR’s job of posting media. It needs to be easy to add and remove videos and other media. MetLife’s Annual U.S. Employee Benefits Trends Study showed that 88% of employers agree this tactic is helpful.
Schedule content releases promoting your benefits
Did you know the “Back to School” Facebook post you saw this morning was planned months ago? That’s right, good outbound content tactics are planned months in advance. And once you have a centralized and easy to manage landing page for benefits engagement, you should build a content calendar and distribute benefits promotional materials throughout the year. Distribute your content via email, text, and any other form of internal company messaging. Doing so will encourage regular visits to your employee benefits engagement landing page, enable access to the most up-to-date information, while simultaneously nurturing them on other features and advantages of their benefits.
Furthermore, we strongly recommend you assemble timed communications and theme them to connect your benefits to relevant holidays or events occurring in the month. For example:
January: New year, new benefits, and new year’s resolutions. People are heading to gyms in droves, so promote your new benefits or focus on wellness programs. Especially promote any gym reimbursement, fitness device programs or smoking cessation programs.
February: Love is in the air. Promote family benefits, especially Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and invite employees to consider other voluntary benefits.
March: Almost tax day. Promote financial wellness. Encourage people to revisit their withholding calculations, retirement contributions, retirement portfolios or target date funds tied to their retirement plan.
Regardless of your themes and sequence, we recommend you follow these remaining steps:
- Build an employee communication content calendar. At the beginning of the year, plan a month-by-month content strategy. What key messages do you want to communicate and when? To increase engagement, be sure to consider themes for respective periods of time by taking into account holidays or common events. (e.g. tax day, new year’s resolutions, etc.).
- Consider your audience. What will get your employees’ and spouses’ attention? Humor? Key Information and Statistics? Visually interesting content? All the above?
- Gather your content and assign it to the respective periods. Carefully consider using videos because they communicate a lot of information in minutes. Video is perfect for on-boarding, year-round communications, and open enrollment. Furthermore, simplify your job by calling on your vendors, consultants, and partners to provide existing content they may already have. Some resources already exist and are available, just ask for them.
- Upload your content. Make sure all your benefits engagement and education media is available on your landing page.
- Update your site regularly. According to your calendar, shuffle and prominently display certain media on your landing page as the year progresses. This process should be quick, intuitive, and not involve IT.
- Promote, promote, promote. Drive your audience to your benefits engagement and education landing page. Stay top of mind. Keep reminding your employees (and their spouses) they have easy access to their benefits information, and have access to a plethora of resources which will help them discover even more. Send brief emails, videos and other messages to your team on a regular basis. Remember, all this can be automated and easy to do with the right partner.
Implementing your employee benefits engagement and education strategy can be easy and affordable if you have the right partner and a sound strategy. Once you do, you’ll have better informed employees, better utilization of your entire benefits offering, and be better prepared for open enrollment and new hire initiatives.
About LearnYour Benefits
LearnYour Benefits is a fast-growing benefits communication and technology company. We specialize in helping organizations visually-articulate their benefits and wellness programs with brief videos and mobile streaming technology. We combine deep-expertise in video production and advanced streaming technology to create solutions for employers, consultants, pooled-benefits-organizations, and CDHC partners. We’re regularly recognized for our high-level of service, expertise in communications, and ultra-affordable pricing.
How may we help you implement your employee benefits communication strategy?
- Contact us today!
- LearnYourBenefits.com
- info@LearnYourBenefits.com
- 1-800-718-1803—
Links: https://assets.sourcemedia.com/7f/0e/775b4ded4848b071254e61aa1b9b/oerb.12.17.18.pdf
