To paraphrase Tennyson very loosely, at this point in the year, the thoughts of many HR pros turn to Annual Enrollment. AE is effectively the year’s “main event.” The spotlight is on, and it’s time to shine.
There’s a lot at stake. Employers offer benefits for two important reasons, both inexorably tied to organizational success:
Record-low unemployment and demographic trends are making it harder to hang onto human capital, so the benefits you manage are more visible. Employees value their benefits highly, and there’s a correlation between competitive benefits and employee tenure.
So, how do you differentiate? How do you both highlight and manage your program to ensure you’re generating the optimal ROI for the organization, both during Annual Enrollment and throughout the year as employees are using their benefits?
Two words: Benefits technology.
Benefits technology connects your employees to their benefits seamlessly and successfully while also providing you with the flexibility and information you need to do your job well. Both types of end-users are important, and each has a set of unique needs. The best benefits technology solutions meet the needs of both benefits pros and employees, both for enrollment and for ongoing engagement.
What do benefits and HR pros need?
HR and benefits teams continue to be asked to do more, so an approach that creates value without adding work is important. Ideally, look for a solution that delivers on the following.
What do employees need?
Employees are benefits consumers, not pros, so their needs around technology go to their experience choosing and using benefits. More and more, expectations around benefits delivery are informed by how people behave in their lives outside the workplace. While this is especially true for Millennials, all employees are looking for easy access and support that solves for a lack of deep benefits knowledge. And, to help cut through the complexity, they crave personalization.
State-of-market benefits technology can address these expectations:
The key takeaway here is that the right technology can help drive value from an organization’s benefits program.
With advances in technology, benefits delivery is now constantly evolving to become more sophisticated and impactful. Don’t settle for functionality that met your needs a few years ago. Whatever your current solution, make sure to take advantage of any enhancements and additional functionality. Seek the best experience for both your team and your employees and generate the highest return on your overall investment.
As planning for Annual Enrollment gets into full swing for many employers, setting goals around benefits choice-making and delivery success makes sense. As part of offering benefits that meet larger organizational goals, HR pros should think critically and strategically about how they are connecting benefits to both employees and their own departments and expect a higher level of function and experience from their benefits technology solutions moving into this year’s Annual Enrollment and beyond.
Learn more about how one organization used technology to double their benefits membership.