Do Your Employees Actually Understand Their Benefits During Open Enrollment?
Open enrollment usually comes with a lot of information.
Plan options. Premiums. Deductibles. Deadlines. Emails. Forms.
Employers may spend weeks getting everything ready and making sure employees receive the information they need, but sending employees the information is only half the job.
Did you communicate the information that they need to make a decision?
That is a different question.
START WITH THE DECISIONS, NOT THE DOCUMENTS
Benefits information is often organized around the documents an employer needs to provide.
Try looking at it from the employee’s side instead.
What decisions does the employee actually need to make?
They may need to decide:
• Which medical plan fits their needs
• Whether to add a spouse or dependent
• Which optional benefits they want
• Whether they need to change current elections
• What they need to complete before the deadline
Establish a list of decision points like the ones above. Once you know them, you can look at your open enrollment communication and ask whether employees have the information they need for each one.
- SEPARATE “WHAT’S CHANGING” FROM “WHAT’S STAYING THE SAME”
Employees who already have benefits may not need another introduction to every plan.
They probably want to know one thing: What’s different this year?
Did premiums change? Did the deductible change? Is there a new carrier or network? Did you add or remove a benefit?
Put those changes somewhere employees can find quickly. Then provide the full plan information for anyone who wants or needs to dig deeper.
- EXPLAIN COSTS BEYOND THE PAYCHECK
The premium coming out of each paycheck is easy to compare.
It is also only one part of what a health plan may cost an employee.
Employees may also need to compare deductibles, copays, coinsurance, out-of-pocket limits, and provider networks.
If your comparison only shows the payroll deduction, you may be downplaying the scale of the financial decision that they are actually making for their families.
- TELL EMPLOYEES WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY DO NOTHING
This deserves more than a sentence buried in an enrollment email.
What happens if an employee misses the deadline? Do current elections continue automatically? Does the employee lose certain benefits? Are there benefits that must be elected again?
Make the answer easy to find.
“No action required” and “you must make an election” are two very different messages.
Employees should not have to search through several pages of benefits information to figure out which one applies.
- GIVE EVERY MESSAGE ONE JOB
More communication does not always mean better communication. Sending several long emails with the same information can make employees more likely to tune them out. Instead, give each message a job.
One email might explain enrollment dates and what is changing. Another might show employees where to compare their options. A reminder email might focus only on the deadline and what happens if they do nothing.
Employees do not need every detail in every message. They need the right information at the right time.
- DECIDE WHO SHOULD ANSWER WHICH QUESTIONS
Employees are going to have questions during open enrollment.
Decide ahead of time where different types of questions should go.
Your HR team may handle enrollment questions. Your broker or carrier may be better equipped for detailed plan questions. Another resource may handle technical problems with the enrollment system.
Additionally, make sure managers know where to send employees. A well-meaning manager can easily become an unofficial benefits expert and give an employee incomplete or incorrect information.
Managers do not need to know every answer or try to answer every question. They just need to know where to send employees for the right answers.
- DO A 60-SECOND EMPLOYEE TEST
Before sending an open enrollment message or enrollment materials, give it one final test. Pretend you are an employee seeing the information for the first time.
Can you find these answers in about a minute?
- What changed this year?
- What decisions do I need to make?
- What will this cost me?
- What do I need to do?
- When is the deadline?
- What happens if I do nothing?
- Where do I go with questions?
Keep in mind that if an answer is difficult to find, adding more information may not solve the problem. You may need to make the important information easier to see.
COMMUNICATION IS PART OF THE PROCESS
Open enrollment problems are not always caused by missing information.
Sometimes all the information was technically provided. The problem was that an important detail was buried or unclear
For open enrollment, the goal is not simply to say everything. It is to make sure employees can find what they need, understand what matters, and know what to do next.
