4 tricks and treats for a boo-tiful benefits enrollment

Earlier this month, we offered you our five open enrollment must-haves for benefits professionals. This week, in honor of Halloween, here are four tricks and treats you can give your employees to keep them from getting spooked this year during enrollment:

1. Treat yourself to the gift of time. Statistics show that average American takes less than 30 minutes to make benefits decisions—and in that brief time, 89% of people choose the same plans as the year before. Remind your employees that the decisions are important, and take thought, care and planning for their life, family, finances and health. There’s no way all of that happens in 30 minutes or less.

2. Trick your brain into thinking beyond health insurance. We know that you try to maximize having employees as a captive audience during enrollment time, so you make sure to tell them about ev-er-y-thing: wellness programs, life insurance, retirement planning, voluntary programs, and work-life—in addition to major medical.

Employees, in their haste (and perhaps confusion), just pick a medical plan and call it done. However, use your communications to help them see their benefits as an extension of their lives so that they can make holistic decisions. In this regard, segmenting your communication to reach specific employees in various life stages or other demographic slices (not contributing to your retirement plan, or maxing out their HSA) can be valuable in making your messages—and your plans—feel more personal and relatable.

3. Trick your eyes into seeing beyond your premiums. When thinking about health plans, your choice is so much wider and affected by so much more than what you pay per paycheck. Make sure your employees know that.

How? Break down unfamiliar and complex insurance terms into plain English concepts—the reason people zero in on per paycheck costs is because it’s what they easily understand. Deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums? Not so much. Give them key information they need to see how their plan choices affect their health and wallet over the long term.

4. Treat yourself to having all the information. It bears repeating: These choices are important, so give your employees the confidence and freedom to ask any and all questions they need to. Town halls, webinars, lunch & learns, benefits fairs—whatever it takes to make sure employees are well informed with accurate and actionable information.

Then, keep them engaged beyond enrollment by communicating year round. It’s one of the best ways we know make sure employees still hear you outside of the annual two-week window.

From all of us at Benz Communications, happy Halloween!