Every year, right before open enrollment, HR teams are flooded with advice on how to nail their open enrollment presentation. But we’re here to go against the grain: You don’t have to nail your presentation.
Confused? We’ll explain.
Benefits messaging: Not a one-and-done
Most companies communicate about benefits once before open enrollment. One presentation—one shot to get all the necessary benefits information to employees. There’s so much pressure to nail one presentation, to get everything perfect. The immense pressure can drive HR employees towards burnout.
Let’s think about benefits education like we would traditional schooling. Would we teach children once per year, put a standardized test in front of them, and then expect them to ace it? No, we would teach them year-round to help them constantly absorb the information. Benefits education is no different.
55% of employees wish they had more information about their benefits, so they could get more value from them. Rather than communicating once per year, frequent and consistent benefits messaging is key to help employees truly understand their options.
Why is year-round messaging important?
Humans prefer bite-sized information, rather than one big educational dump. We have a maximum amount of information that we can learn in one sitting. Giving employees too much information at one time causes cognitive overload—meaning they can’t absorb any more information.
Micro-learning is one way to avoid cognitive overload. Micro-learning is short, nugget-sized information that is clearly organized. It drives information retention up by 20%, compared to long-form material.
Rather than dumping all the information at one time, frequent, bite-sized, year-round messaging provides employees with benefits information as they need it. When the time to make a benefits decision comes, your employees will either already understand what choice to make—or know exactly where to find the information they need.
Benefits messaging: Make it accessible
One key concept of micro-learning is that it should be available digitally. That way, when employees need the information, they can quickly hop on a computer or their phones. Here are the top channels employees prefer to receive benefits messaging:
– 50% prefer an online portal
– 41% want to learn via email
– 30% prefer in-person
– 18% want a mobile app
– 17% prefer learning over the phone
Building a year-round plan
Rather than just winging it when it comes to building year-round benefits communications, it’s important to have a plan. This plan can change if any last-minute issues pop up, but it helps to know exactly what and when you plan to communicate.
Before planning, think about what specific goals you want to achieve. Do you want to boost benefits participation? Or increase engagement with benefits educational material? Whatever goals you have, make sure they’re the driving force behind your plan.
How to organize your messaging plan
If you have no idea where to start, don’t worry. We’ll explain how to organize your messaging plan by splitting up the year into four time periods:
1. Pre-enrollment
2. Open enrollment
3. Post-enrollment
4. Ongoing
We’ll deep-dive into each time period, and what type of communications should characterize them.
Pre-enrollment: Awareness and engagement
The pre-enrollment phase is all about making employees aware of their benefits, and encouraging them to engage with their benefits education.
One great way to effectively communicate during this period is by telling stories. Real-life stories are easy to remember, and they help employees truly understand how their benefits can be used. Storytelling takes theoretical information, and makes it understandable and applicable.
Another way to be effective during this time period is by sending communications directly from leadership. This can help employees feel truly cared for and valued by their leaders. It also makes employees more likely to pay attention.
Open enrollment: Education and enrollment
Now that employees are aware of what benefits they can choose from, it’s time for straight-forward education. Details are key here—not only about the benefits themselves, but also how those benefits apply to an employee’s everyday life. We highly recommend providing them with the tools and resources they need to make decisions confidently.
And of course, this phase includes employees enrolling in benefits. Some of your communications can explain how to enroll in benefits and encourage them not to miss important deadlines.
Post-enrollment: Guidance
Employees have already enrolled in their benefits—but that doesn’t mean the messaging work is done. 7 in 10 employees want to keep learning about their benefits, even after they’ve already signed up.
Post-enrollment guidance helps employees understand their benefits and how to use them. This helps employees get the most value from their benefits. In this phase, you can provide helpful:
– Contact information
– Important links
– Educational resources
These can drive engagement with their benefits, especially when they’re personalized and relevant. For example, if you know an employee’s family is welcoming a new child, you can send them specialized information regarding their maternity or paternity benefits.
Ongoing: Evaluate and optimize
If you don’t measure your engagement metrics, then you’ll never truly know what messaging has been effective. Knowing what communications are effective helps you craft better messaging. For example, you can measure:
– Media analytics
– Employee perception
– Employee understanding
– Return on investment (ROI)
After measuring effectiveness, implement any changes that will help you drive up engagement moving forward.
LearnYour Benefits can help
You don’t have to nail your open enrollment presentation when you have a year-round messaging plan in place. If you’re looking for a teammate to take the pressure off your shoulders, LearnYour Benefits can help. You can sit back, relax, and know that your benefits messaging work is being taken care of.
LearnYour Benefits is a platform that helps employees and benefits educators throughout the entire educational journey. Using LearnYour Benefits, you can set up a one-stop benefits education site filled with videos, helpful resources, and links. Our platform helps you communicate with employees by setting up year-round promotional campaigns. It also helps employees easily navigate through all the benefits information you provide.
Schedule a demo today to learn more.
