When discussing benefits with employees, it can be a major challenge to ensure they understand the message—let alone care about or engage with it. We’re talking about benefits communication: the art of distributing benefits information to staff quickly and effectively. These efforts play a vital role in giving employees an overview of their benefits options—and keeping them updated on important alterations or improvements that affect their benefits packages. But the question remains: what can your HR team do to improve its benefits communication process?
At Apprize, we take pride in supporting the success of HR teams across the country through powerful ben admin software and industry insights on employee benefit management. Today, we’ll be taking the next few minutes to walk you through a handful of useful strategies your HR department can harness to make benefits communication faster, easier and more impactful.
When you live and breathe benefits on a daily basis, it can be difficult to explain related ideas in a way that’s digestible for average employees. Of course, you want to provide enough context for staff to engage with the subject, but that’s a slippery slope towards information overload. The solution? Simplicity and restraint. It sounds obvious, but trimming down and properly translating your benefits messaging can make all the difference between providing a helpful resource and yet another ignored email.
The first step here is to cut out non-essential jargon (Most jargon is, by the way.) Think about how you would explain benefits concepts to a busy professional outside of the field of HR in a face-to-face conversation. Odds are good that you would cut out most of the fluff and get straight to essentials. If you aren’t sure how your benefits messaging performs in this regard, consider sampling it with someone from a different department. If they need to ask you for clarifying information, google something, or take more than a few minutes to process any given message, consider simplifying a few things and trying again.
Your team invests a significant amount of time and effort into which topics each piece of benefits messaging will cover—but what about structural changes? We’re talking about headers, FAQ sections, tips lists and so on. All of these tools can help readers quickly absorb information or skim through the message for relevant insights. You can also leverage external links in messaging to help guide coworkers to more in-depth information—an invaluable practice for more advanced benefits topics.
Communication structure encompasses the pacing of your benefits messaging, too. Are you sending a flurry of messages right before enrollment? If so, you’re probably just overwhelming employees. By spreading valuable information out gradually throughout the year—preferably with a set posting schedule—you can cover more ground and improve retention of those concepts. It’s also important to give employees a library of benefits resources they can access when their schedule allows. For example, Apprize benefits administration platforms make it easy to host and distribute videos, benefits and plan information, and other helpful assets to support staff year-round.
Employee coverage has become highly personalized, which can make it challenging to ensure staff don’t receive irrelevant information. Fortunately, your team can harness employee coverage enrollment data to create tailored messages that apply to their unique benefits needs and interests. Dividing your benefits communication into smaller and more specialized components can make your messaging more engaging and appealing.
With a ben admin platform, it’s easy to segment employees based on their unique coverage options—and share interest-specific messaging with those groups. From targeting expecting parents to employees who aren’t yet taking advantage of 401k contributions, you can utilize employee enrollment data to connect with groups of employees and provide tailored benefits information. This approach supports better employee engagement, satisfaction and enrollment outcomes all at once!
Thanks to innovations in benefits technology, employers use a range of engagement tools to increase benefit literacy and boost program participation. For example, our best-in-breed ben admin platforms act as a robust communication hub for employees—complete with supportive resources (including helpful videos and content libraries) to help users explore the coverage they care about effortlessly. Your team can use these resources to streamline the entire benefits communication process and support better healthcare outcomes overall.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Apprize technology solutions can support your business, then be sure to check out our platform demos! These videos will give you a better understanding of our platform capabilities position employers across the nation for success. You can also connect with us for more insights or advice on employee benefits administration and management. We’re happy to help however we can.