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By Don King
on December 29, 2025
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As annual enrollment windows close, HR now has to turn their attention to ensuring a strong start to the new plan here. Here’s what you need to know.
Annual enrollment might get the fun “HR Superbowl” moniker, but the real heavy lifting happens in the post-season.
Once the election windows close, the spotlight shifts from info sessions and deadline reminders to the less glamorous, but equally critical work: Data integrity, payroll accuracy, vendor coordination, and employee engagement.
Here’s how to set your benefits administration strategy up for a smooth and quiet plan start.
1. Pop, lock, and audit
Annual enrollment opens the data floodgates. Updated census files, plan elections, contributions, eligibility… we could go on and on.
Once your enrollment window closes, it’s time to make sure your data is ready to roll. After you freeze your elections in your system of record, it’s time to make sure the rest of the data is set up to flow smoothly.
Your goal: Your HRIS, benefits administration system, and carrier files should all tell the same story.
What to audit:
Run discrepancy and eligibility reports to check for:
Duplicate coverage (employee listed twice with the same plan)
Employees enrolled in plans they’re not eligible for
Dependent issues (ineligible dependents, missing DOBs, missing SSNs where required)
Inconsistent or missing effective dates
“Zero premium” coverage that shouldn’t be zero
Compare year-over-year plan files to verify that election data carried through:
Did an entire department suddenly drop medical?
Do you see large numbers of employees moving from richer to leaner plans (or vice versa) that don’t make sense?
Did people who should have auto-enrolled somehow lose coverage?
Reconcile carrier and vendor partner data to make sure everything aligns, looking at:
Eligibility by plan or tier
Dependents attached correctly to each subscriber
Effective dates that match your policies
Special populations (retirees, COBRA, leaves, expats) landing in the right place
No, not your stress (though stepping away from your desk and getting some fresh air is strongly recommended).
This stress test is about the systems and processes that need to withstand the first few weeks of the new plan year: Can employees use their benefits? And can your internal teams support them without everything breaking?
Think of this like a dress rehearsal before the plan start date. You want to find the broken links, the barriers to benefits, and the confusing workflows now, not when an employee is trying to get care on January 2.
Try to use your benefits like an employee would:
Can you access digital ID cards in the medical, dental, and vision portals/apps?
Do provider search tools work and reflect the correct networks?
Are telehealth platforms live and linked correctly?
Check HSA/FSA/commuter readiness:
Are cards produced and activated?
Are account balances and funding schedules set up for the new plan year?
Are contribution limits and rules configured correctly?
Confirm your support model is ready:
Do HR, the help desk, and managers know where to send people with questions?
Are vendor contact details, hours, and escalation paths documented and easy to find?
Is your ticketing system set up to tag “benefits” issues so you can track early trends?
3. Roll call on payroll data
When deductions are wrong, people notice immediately. Fixing errors later is time-consuming, manual, and often involves refunds, arrears, and a lot of explaining.
What to validate:
Rates and plan mapping
Pre-tax vs. post-tax logic
Run a test payroll:
Use a sample set of employees to test out:
Single vs. family coverage
Multiple plan combinations (medical only, medical + dental, etc.)
HSA vs. FSA vs. no accounts
Part-time vs. full-time
Review gross pay, pre-tax deductions, post-tax deductions, and net pay for reasonableness.
Check edge cases:
Employees on leave, new hires right at year-end, and people with mid-December life events can easily land in the wrong place.
Confirm who should have double deductions, catch-up deductions, or no deductions at all in the first cycle.
4. Set your employees up for success
You’ve fixed the behind-the-scenes issues. Now you need to make sure employees can find and use their benefits.
But no one wants another 30-page slide deck. Employees want quick answers to: “What did I enroll in?”, “How do I use it?”, and “Where do I go when something breaks?”
Make your information easy to find:
Post current plan summaries, SBCs, and key highlights on your intranet or benefits platform.
Clearly label them with the new plan year so employees aren’t opening outdated PDFs.
Refresh your FAQs
Confirm all links, phone numbers, and portals
Proactively support those most impacted: A simple, targeted email to these groups—explaining what changed and how to transition care—can prevent a large volume of high-stress issues later.
5. Set up a regular maintenance and support schedule
The new plan year launch isn’t a one-day event; it’s the start of a full year of monitoring and adjustment. If you only react when something breaks, you’ll always be behind.
Treat benefits like any other critical business system: schedule maintenance, define success metrics, and review performance.
What to put on your calendar:
Recurring check-ins with vendors to review:
Eligibility issues and file feed errors
Call center trends and top member questions
Claims processing timing and any systemic errors
Escalations and how they were resolved
Internal review cadence with HR, payroll, and IT to review:
Review tickets and help desk data
Identify repeat issues and root causes
Decide what can be fixed now vs. what needs to roll into next year’s OE planning
A light but consistent maintenance routine will do more for employee experience (and your sanity).
A quiet January is the best sign of a well-run annual enrollment. The heavy lift isn’t just getting employees to make their elections—it’s making sure those elections work in real life. When HR, payroll, and vendors are aligned, employees start the year with confidence instead of confusion, and your team can focus on engagement instead of damage control. A strong post-enrollment process sets the tone for the entire plan year: accurate, stable, and trusted.
