PHWP: Good Company Newsletter: Keeping Your Benefits Message Simple When Everything Else Isn’t

July 28, 2010

Keeping Your Benefits Message Simple When Everything Else Isn’t

By Jennifer Benz

There is a good chance that right now at least one of your employees is looking at photos on Facebook. There’s likely another one posting the latest gossip on Twitter. There’s another watching that new video on YouTube. Some might be texting their friends, others playing word games on their mobile phone.

One thing we’re pretty sure about: They’re not eagerly awaiting the arrival of their benefits communication package.

Your employees and their families are distracted. With current events. With TV. With their families. With life. And, yet somehow, someway, you need to capture their attention long enough to help them make key decisions about their benefits—and their futures.

With annual enrollment just around the corner for most companies, now is the time to look at your benefits communication to make sure it is effective and relevant. In the midst of health care reform, a slowly recovering economy and a world of new technology like social media, it is more important than ever that benefits communication keeps up and stands out.

Why It Matters
Year after year, surveys show that effective benefits communication leads to employees’ greater appreciation, participation and usage of benefits. Most of us don’t need proof: it makes sense that good communication improves the way employees perceive and use their benefits. But, despite the surveys—and common sense—supporting strong communication, employers and employees continue to give benefits communication low scores. According to MetLife’s 8th Annual Study of Employee Benefit Trends, only 36 percent of employers and 33 percent of employees think their company’s benefits communication is effective.

Too much is at stake for benefits communication to remain ineffective. When employees are satisfied with their benefits, four out of five are satisfied with their job. When they aren’t, that number drops to one out of five. The MetLife study reports that in companies where benefits communication is effective, employees are more satisfied with their benefits, more satisfied with their job and more loyal to their employer.

You want your benefits communication to be there—to be effective in supporting key decisions about your employees’ and their families’ health and well-being and financial security. The challenge is to simplify information and make sure it is always relevant. Use these tips as you plan ahead for enrollment in the fall or your ongoing communication.

Keep It Simple
Benefits are complicated. Even the smartest people can feel frustrated and overwhelmed when it’s time for annual enrollment—that one time each year that you can make changes to your company-provided health and insurance benefits. And if your employees already think benefits are difficult to understand, wait until they try to wrap their heads around the years of change that will come as part of health care reform. It is your job to make things easy and clear—and make sure employees and their families are focused on what they need to do now.

It’s easy to get lost in the details when you try to communicate every last possible piece of information. In reality the most important questions employees have are also the most basic: What’s new? What will it cost me? What do I have to do? Make sure you answer these questions in a simple and direct manner.

Take action: Create a one-page Enrollment “Tip Sheet” that lists any changes as simply as possible (a bulleted list will often suffice), gives brief enrollment instructions and tells employees and families where to go for all the details. Some employees want just the top-line info and some want all the details. This one-page overview will be helpful for both groups.

Focus On Employees and Their Families – And Their Personal Needs
In addition to the health care reform changes, your company likely has some additional benefit changes employees need to know about—the “what’s changing” that happens every year. Employees deserve to know what is happening because of health care reform and what’s happening as part of annual benefits changes. But, be sure to explain how the benefit changes support them and what they’ll need to do differently.

Always focus on your employees and their needs by taking on their perspective in communication. For example, if you’re talking about changes that could decrease out-of-pocket costs, tell your employees what that will mean to their pocketbook. If you’re talking about what the company spends on health care, use a per-employee number, not something in the millions. Try saying things like, “Using generic drugs instead of brand-name prescriptions could put an extra $500 in your pocket each year,” instead of, “The cost of brand-name drugs is three times that of generic drugs and adds $800,000 a year to our health care costs.”

Take action: Review all communication materials from the perspective of an average employee—one who doesn’t know a lot about benefits. Will they get it? If not, clarify.

Promote Missed or Under-Utilized Benefits
Employees are not going to comb through every detail of their benefits. And, in most companies, they are leaving a lot on the table by not participating in or maximizing their benefits. Use annual enrollment to promote benefits that are under-used—whether they are part of open enrollment or not. When you tell people what they are missing out on, you’ll have a better chance of grabbing their attention.

Take action: Put together a list of the 5-10 benefits that employees are not using enough—your health savings account, supplemental life, voluntary insurance, hidden features of the EAP, your preventive care benefit, commuter benefits, etc.—and create a one-page flyer. Title it “The top-5 employee benefits you may be missing” or “10 ways you’re not getting the most from your benefit plans.” Spell out the program, why it’s valuable and how to enroll/sign up/get reimbursed.

Start Using Social Media
Whether you start posting tips and simple reminders in a blog, use Twitter or RSS feeds to keep your benefits websites fresh, spell out the details of your consumer-directed health plan in a video, or let employees encourage each other’s health goals through online social networks, social media can be a powerful addition to your benefits communication strategy.

These simple and cost-effective tools can be harnessed to your advantage and add one or more new channels for your employee and their families to receive information and interact. Don’t be intimidated by social media—there are very practical and effective ways to get started that will help your benefits communication feel fresh and relevant while getting employees simple information they can use.

One of the most effective and easiest to start is a blog. Blogs are simply a way to publish information in real time and let people comment on it and ask questions. They are incredibly powerful for benefits communication. They give you another way to get information out frequently (say goodbye to never-ending FAQ updates) and give people a simple reminder or suggestion to take action. You get instant feedback when people post comments and questions.

Take action: Just do it! Pick one social media channel to start using during enrollment—Twitter or a blog are the easiest ones to get started. Use Benz Communications’ @BenefitsTip to give you ideas and content for Twitter.

Get Managers In The Game
Your managers are talking with employees daily. Sometimes, managers don’t know what to say when it comes to benefits. Give your managers the information and tools to start conversations with employees and answer questions.

Take action: Create a one-page manager tip sheet for enrollment that includes key dates and answers to the top three most common employee questions (What’s new? What will it cost me? What do I have to do?). Remember, managers should typically just be talking about top-line messages and the value of benefits. They shouldn’t be giving specific advice or opinions about plans. This tip sheet can help them understand their role.

For more enrollment tips, see MetLife’s Open Enrollment Toolbox or visit Benz Communications’ website.

The content provided above is for informational purposes only. The inclusion of any product, service, vendor or organization does not imply endorsement, recommendation or approval by the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program or the APA Practice Organization.

Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/canon_duo / CC BY 2.0

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