Annual enrollment is a critical period for any organization. It’s the time when HR administrators have the opportunity to communicate employee benefits options effectively. However, engaging employees during this time can be challenging. The sheer volume of messages that need to go out during AE can feel overwhelming, and sometimes it may seem like your employees choose to not read or are simply are paying attention.
It’s worth it to continue driving engagement, as the right coverage can impact employees all year long, drive employee retention, and help employees understand the company’s empathy level. After all, according to our 2024 State of Workplace Empathy Report, 91% of employees see their core benefits as a demonstration of empathy.
Adopt a Data-Driven Approach
This might be a two-part exercise, in which you have to first determine where you can gather data about your communications, before you dig into the data results themselves. Consider the different data resources you have, such as employee surveys from previous enrollment periods.
And, if you use a benefits administration system or email program, you can typically glean information from those as well, such as which email communications last year had the highest open rates or click-through rates.
Additionally, our benefits technology, Benefitsolver, provides alternative metrics back to employers, including a quarterly SofiaSM report. Sofia is our virtual benefits assistant, trained to provide answers to questions based on each employee’s eligibility and coverage. Employers are able to see top searched phrases, programs, and plans. Not surprisingly, general “benefits” lead the pack on top searched phrases, but (perhaps) surprisingly, across all clients, HSAs are the number one request on plan information. Knowing what members are asking about can give a great clue about their gaps in knowledge and where to focus some of your communication strategy.
Implement Automation
Once we have the data in hand and we have analyzed our opportunities, it’s time to introduce automation to the setup. “Drip campaigns” and automated communication systems are an effective way of communicating benefits options to employees without overwhelming them with information. If you aren’t familiar with a drip campaign, it’s a marketing term for providing small amounts of information over time to get the recipient to learn about or act on something specific. You might have a retailer that emails you weekly with sales; or one time you shopped for a purse, so now they send you accessory coupons…that’s a drip campaign.
Campaign Ideas:
- New hires: Get to know your benefits options
- Gen Z: Benefits Basics – Breaking Down the Lingo
- Benefits transitions: What’s changing and what’s not
- Over-60 employees: Here’s your retirement checklist
- Heart Health month: Staying heart-healthy and your supporting benefits
And tying automation to these drip campaigns reduces the burden on HR, freeing up time to focus on strategic tasks. Using a system like Benefitsolver® with our Benefits Communication and Automation Engine, helps you target specific eligibility or age groups, company divisions, or even geographical locations. With our campaign tools, you can even schedule messages to trigger at a specific time or date, and track who’s read and clicked through the links. This level of tracking can help you determine which types of communications are working and evaluate future communications.
My team specializes in these activities, taking on the marketing efforts on behalf of our clients so they can stay focused on delivering a successful AE throughout their organization.
Unleash Your Creativity
What are you using outside of email? We have clients who have large on-site populations and use mirror clings or bathroom stall posters. Many clients use digital “posters” on internal TVs throughout the workplace. From signs to sidewalk chalk, how can you engage (and maybe even surprise) employees with creative messaging?
For remote and hybrid employers, consider text messaging, Teams/Zoom backgrounds, benefits trivia sessions (with prizes), sending benefits ambassadors to regular team meetings, and gathering some testimonials from employees who would share a particular benefits experience. If you’re doing a webinar, give out prizes to those who take time to attend to build excitement and boost attendance and break up the session with some polls or fun facts.
If you use social media for internal groups, see if there are current trends you can adapt to be eye-catching. Maybe someone in your office is ready to do the latest TikTok dance to promote your fitness program or create a simple meme about using telemedicine options.
Measure, Drip, and Have Fun
All of the HR crowd knows the importance of benefits, but that doesn’t mean benefits always have to be boring. Deploy the tools you do have access to and maximize those. Get feedback on what’s working. Analyze usage and click-through rates. Send short bursts of information and link out to the details. Have a little fun with your messaging and capture employees’ attention. While they may not want to know everything about their benefits, it’s helpful to engage them so they can make informed choices about their health and wellness.
CTA: Learn more about recent enhancements to our Benefits Communication and Automation Engine.
