Top Tactics to Improve Benefits Literacy and Employee Engagement
Is your benefits strategy supporting the people behind your employees? Addressing the needs of your population means prioritizing their families and finances.
Employee benefits are an essential aspect of any company’s strategy. Sure, benefits supplement salary in retaining talent. More than that, benefit offerings directly impact peoples’ families, their dependents, and financial situation.
Most people think of benefits as those options elected during annual enrollment each year. But don’t forget those benefits that are no-cost to employees but still support physical, emotional, and financial health.
For example, employee support groups or virtual celebrations. These are workplace types of benefits that have a great impact on health and happiness outside of their work.
Our recent webinar focused on bringing personalization to the forefront of your benefits strategy. Here are some key takeaways:
Addressing Employee Needs
The workforce is more diverse than ever. Plus, the worldwide chaos of the last couple years has brought to light the importance of taking a holistic lens on personal health. This means that traditional benefits packages just aren’t cutting it anymore.
When was the last time you surveyed the real needs of your people and stacked that up against your current benefits offerings?
You may want to consider adding more robust mental health resources or other voluntary benefits. Rising options, like telemedicine and EAPs, are extra benefits which are meaningful to their members.
Organizations need to expand their offerings to support physical, emotional, and financial health in and outside of the workplace. This means acknowledging diversity in their needs, but also differences in how employees need to be engaged with. That’s where personalization comes in.
Personalizing Communications
To build a personalized experience, communicate in ways that resonate with employees. This looks like using texting and email addresses, both personal and professional, to deliver information.
Remember, some employees have spouses at home who may understand or use their benefits more than they do themselves. That’s why benefits communication strategies must take into account the dependents, too.
After annual enrollment is over, relevancy is critical to benefits engagement. Employees are more likely to engage with information that is designed with them in mind. This is step one in leveraging their benefits to see their provider and avoid costly health concerns.
Offering Decision-Support Tools
Decision support is essential during the enrollment process to help employees navigate and choose the benefits that are best for their unique circumstance. Confusion, cost, and means can all be barriers in receiving care. Digital tools can increase healthcare confidence and further positive outcomes.
Truth is, the majority of employees want to self-serve. Digital technologies, like a single benefits portal or decision-support tools, give employees the information they need when they need it. Not to mention that self-serve options like mobile applications are available 24/7.
Decision-support tools help level the playing field. Younger employees, who may have been in the workforce for a decade before making their own benefits decisions, are less likely to truly understand and use their benefits. To fully realize the impact of your benefits offerings, underscore them with relevant communications and digital tools that come alongside employees in their individual health journey.
As we can see, a successful employee benefits strategy is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it requires organizations to tailor benefits to their diverse employee groups and address their unique needs.
Personalization is key from the packages themselves to communication to decision-support tools. Remember to continually evaluate and change benefits to meet employee needs and stay competitive in the market.
A panel of benefits experts from the American Cancer Society, Windstream, and Businessolver share their perspective in our full 60-minute webinar, 5 Ways to Personalize Your Benefits.
