5 Ways HR and Benefits Teams Can Meet Growing Employee Communication Demands in 2025

The U.S. workforce is more dynamic than ever due to rapid technological advancements, shifting employee expectations of workplace environments, and growing demands for work-life balance. This evolution is creating new communication challenges for HR and benefits professionals. Today, it’s no longer enough to send out generic announcements and reminder emails or post informational content to your website. Employees expect personalized and engaging communications delivered right to their fingertips. The question is: How can HR and benefits professionals rethink their communication strategies and meet the growing demands of their people? Here are 5 ways your team can rise to the challenge in 2025.

1. Embrace Personalization Through AI and Data Insights

In a recent Segal Benz blog post, 2025 Is the Year of Breaking Through Noise, Building Employee Trust, and Driving Impact, my colleague, Cassandra Roth, discusses how AI is revolutionizing benefits communication by enabling personalized messaging at scale. We understand that AI is the talk of the town, and it is generating anxiety in your team about its implementation, use, accuracy, and potential biases. While these unknowns can feel overwhelming, one thing is certain: AI-powered technology, such as chatbots integrated on websites, can provide your people with real-time support.

By combining the power of AI with your team’s expertise, your communications will become more efficient and impactful. The cherry on top of using AI is the data insights that come with it. You can leverage these insights to inform future communication strategies. For example, these data insights can help you more quickly understand trends, such as what questions employees are asking and who is asking them. When your team taps into this information, they can strategically decide what type of information to convey to which audiences in the future.

2. Leverage a Multi-Channel Approach Informed by Employee Communication Preferences

The fantastic thing about data insights? They aren’t just available through AI-powered tools. Today, HR and benefits teams have access to thousands of different data points through their vendor partners and various departments within their own organizations. Another way HR and benefits teams can meet the growing demands of their people is by pushing the information they need through multiple communication channels. The strategy behind this can be informed by communication preferences.

The unique thing about communication preferences, especially in today’s generationally diverse workforce, is that they vary from person to person. By tracking employee preferences and using a multichannel communication approach, your team can send relevant updates to specific employee segments or groups. For example, some employees might prefer to get quarterly updates on their benefits by email or via home mailings, while others may want real-time notifications sent directly to their mobile device. Customizing the frequency and format of communications helps to educate and engage employees over time and prevents them from feeling overwhelmed by information overload.

3. Simplify Complex Information Through Fun Visuals and Interactive Tools

As we know, vendor communications about health and welfare, retirement, and compensation programs are rich with dense text and unrelatable jargon, making them difficult for employees to understand. This prevents engagement and, in turn, limits employee action and behavior change. There’s no doubt that as an HR and benefits professional, one of your biggest communication challenges is taking complex information and presenting it to employees in a digestible way.

While embracing simplified language in communications is one piece of the puzzle, another is choosing to adopt a more visual and interactive approach. For example, creating a short, animated video can be more effective than simply listing information in an email. Additionally, interactive tools like quizzes or checklists can help employees better digest information in fun, engaging ways. The goal here is to ensure that employees not only have the information they need, but that they can also understand it to make informed choices.

4. Enlist Leaders and Managers to Champion Your Programs

According to Gallup’s 7 Workplace Challenges for 2025, the psychological state of employees tells a complicated story. Along with historically low levels of engagement and well-being, an alarming number of employees feel disconnected from their organization’s mission. This means that productivity and retention are at risk, and so are engagement and long-term behavior change.

While the tips above are all great ways to help inspire your target audiences, you also need to get leadership buy-in for your initiatives. When we say buy-in from leadership, we’re not just talking about their invisible stamp of approval; they need to champion these initiatives on a day-to-day basis. Having leaders and managers endorse your initiatives will not only help promote your programs, but it will also spread the word about your benefits and give people the permission they might need to use them. One way to implement this is through two-way communication channels with leaders where they can truly spark dialogue with your people. Think virtual or in-person town hall sessions with live Q&A, an open Slack channel, or online focus groups.

5. A Continuous Feedback Loop Is Critical

Personalization, a multi-channel approach, support from leaders and managers—they’re all extremely important, but they must be paired with listening to employees. That said, this year, it’s critical to focus on creating more opportunities and platforms for employees to tell you what’s working and what isn’t. Although asking for feedback may feel scary, having a clear understanding of your people’s needs and challenges will ultimately refine your strategy and future communication plans. And we promise, it’ll only benefit you in the long run. Your communication strategy should continue to evolve based on feedback about what is and isn't working for your people.

It's Up to Us to Lead the Way

In a world where change is constant, it’s up to HR and benefits teams to lead the way in shaping how organizations meet new challenges and successfully engage with their people. In addition to leveraging the tactics above, be open to new approaches for your communications. This idea may make you uncomfortable, but in the long run, adaptability is key to long-term engagement.

We’re proud to work with organizations that value their people. If you want to learn more, we’d love to talk.