AI and Employee Benefits Communication: What’s Working Now and What’s Ahead

Transcript:

Jennifer Benz: Welcome everyone, this is How AI is Changing Employee Benefits Communication, and we are delighted that you’ve joined us today. I will do a little bit of housekeeping as we get started, and as we have more people logging on. We will be recording this session and sharing that with everybody after, and we’ll also share the slides as well as a worksheet that goes along with the content. So, you’ll have lots of materials to take away from the conversation. We really appreciate everybody who sent in questions in advance, and we’ll get to as many of those as we can. And during the session you can use the Q&A feature at the top of your screen to submit any questions along the way, and feel free to submit them during the conversation. We’ll keep an eye on those and pick those up during the presentation and then have time for some Q&A at the end.

This is the second of two webinars about AI. The first one we did a couple weeks ago with my colleagues from the Administration Technology and Consulting practice and our Organizational Effectiveness practice. You can find both those expert practices and that webinar on Segalco.com with the recording and slides as well. And it looks like we have a good group who have been able to log in so far. So, again, welcome everybody, this is How AI is Changing Employee Benefits Communication. I’m Jen Benz, and I’m joined by my colleague Cassandra Roth. I’m the head of growth and innovation for Segal. We’re an HR and benefits consulting firm, and we’re absolutely delighted to spend a little bit of time with you today. I’ll let Cassandra pop on screen and introduce herself.

Cassandra Roth: Hi, thanks Jen, I’m so glad to be here. I’m Cassandra Roth, I’m a senior consultant at Segal Benz, and am really looking forward to having a conversation about benefits communication and AI today.

Jen: Great, thanks Cassandra. And we’re definitely going to have a chat as we have a lot to cover. We’re really, really excited about this topic. So, I’m going to share just a little bit more about Segal Benz, talk about the current state of AI when it comes to benefits communication, and then go through our 10 keys, which are really the best practices around employee benefits communication. We’re going to talk them through, one by one, and talk about how AI is changing them, and all of the opportunity and some of the complexity of each one. AI is moving fast. When we prepped for this webinar, Cassandra and I laughed a lot about how we were adding things to it up to the last minute because there’s so much developing every week on AI. So, we’re excited to do a deep dive into how it’s really impacting benefits communication, and share a lot of ideas with you, and learn from you too.

So, please, in that Q&A function, feel free to share any of the things that you’re doing and we’ll talk about those as well. So, before we dig into AI, let me just share a little bit about Segal Benz. Segal Benz is the communications practice at Segal, and when we talk to audiences like yourselves, and we talk to new clients, we’re always very proud to say that we help great organizations inspire people to improve their health, their finances, and their futures. And this work of benefits communication and really getting people engaged in all of these incredible programs that you offer is what I’ve done my whole career, what many of us have done our whole careers. We love this work. And we believe that it’s about combining art and science. There’s a lot of behavioral economics and understanding human thinking that goes into making this work work.

And we use that to make the HR experience a consumer experience. We want things to be as easy for your people as possible in navigating their benefits as it is in their consumer lives. Just simple, in the palm of their hand, all of the information they need right at their fingertips. And we have a little illustration on the next slide about how easy it can look when you’ve really put the effort into making that experience really simple and seamless. And with AI, there’s so much potential to level-up that consumer experience. And as I mentioned, we’re going to talk through a bit of the vision of AI and then our best practices. So, I’m going to hand things over to Cassandra to talk a little bit about how we see AI in this moment.

Cassandra: Thanks, Jen. As you said, it’s so exciting, right? AI has such huge potential to take on so many different things and really connect a lot of communications and moving parts, and we see that opportunity really clearly. So, we’re really excited about everything that AI can do. Right now, we’re looking at the common benefits communication ecosystem. It’s very familiar to many of you, right? There’s so many different options. Different systems that don’t talk to each other. It’s not always clear where you’re going to go for more information. And AI is really exciting because we see it as an opportunity to bridge that gap and bring all of these separate pieces together to create the ultimate experience for your people. And we see it as an integration layer around everything that you already have, making sure that those things are just talking to each other, giving the information that you need, and providing everyday language to your people.

So, we are super optimistic about this. We want to talk through how you do this, and what that looks like, and where we are today. So, when I talk about where we are today, there’s just so many things that we can do with AI right now. There’s so much potential, but really it’s not just AI, it still requires a human. AI needs an editor, I like to say. We see that it can address complaints, it can address conversations now, but it’s growing every single day to do more. And what AI is going to provide is going to be a significant improvement to your current systems, to your website, to your knowledge, and that’s what we’re really looking forward to. So, as we talk about AI and how it enhances the best practices, I think it’s  important that we go back to talking about what the fundamentals are and why they’re so important and critical to AI today.

Jen: Yep, absolutely. Thanks, Cassandra. And that integration layer and making sense of the ecosystem is one of the big challenges with benefits overall. And one of the things we always hear from clients is that we just don’t know what’s going to work. We don’t know how to get people engaged in their benefits and all of these really valuable programs that we’re offering. So, we created our 10 keys framework in response to that frustration, in response to clients saying “we don’t know where to start”. And this is a framework to say we do know what works, we know what it takes to really get people engaged in benefits, and it’s a big effort. It takes a lot of foundational work and it takes a lot of year-round work. So, the 10 keys are really a framework that we use with clients to evaluate the current state and then prioritize areas of investment.

We have a lot of content about it on our website. We have a worksheet that we’ll share after the webinar that you can use with your team to see where you are, and I’ll walk through these briefly now and then we’ll dive into each one of them. So, the foundational pieces are you need a communication strategy... Let’s stay on the overview slide for a second. You need a communication strategy, a brand that really reflects your organization, and a website or what we call a single point of entry. Then, you need to take a marketing approach, and that really gets to that consumer experience we talked about, where you’re marketing your benefits like you would if they were a consumer product. You’re incorporating feedback, you’re prioritizing simplicity, you’re talking to people year round, you’re doing targeted communication, and then you’re really thinking about the participant experience or how everything connects together.

And then, you’re dedicating the right resources, so that’s the budget and the partners are collaborating with all of your partners. So, that’s the framework, and as Cassandra said, AI has so much potential to impact all of these different pieces and make all of these them work better together, but it’s going to take a lot of human intervention too. We need to put the human touch in it to make sure that we’re doing this in ways that are really driving the right outcomes, prioritizing the impact and the impact on your people, and doing that in a really ethical and accurate way. So, we’ll talk about all of that as we dig into each one of these. So, let’s start with the foundation, and the first piece of this is about having a communication strategy. And we always say that there’s no point in communicating if you don’t know what you are driving toward.

You really want to know what the purpose is behind communicating, what are you trying to achieve? What are those goals? And then how are you going to do it? So, we think of strategy as a cyclical process, where we’re usually starting on the left-hand side with questioning and listening, and then defining goals, understanding the audiences, mapping out the campaign tactics, creating the creative content, launching a campaign, measuring it, and then starting all over again to question and listen, define new goals, and so forth. So, sometimes it’s a little intimidating to think about creating a communication strategy. It really does not have to be complex, but it’s important to know what are you trying to drive toward and what your audience cares about? And there’s some really cool ways that AI is going to make strategy even better. Cassandra, what are you thinking along those lines?

Cassandra: I think in terms of strategy, there’s so much opportunity to take data insights and process automations and do it very, very quickly. So, the speed at which you’re going to get all that information to inform your strategy is going to change dramatically—it already is—and that’s exciting because we can get so much information. And then, we have this opportunity with all of that information, and the speed of gathering that information, to prioritize what we learn. And part of what we’re going to need to do that is making sure you have the right skills to manage and interpret that data, that you’re looking at the automation and reviewing it with a mindful strategic eye, the accuracy of the information and what you’re going to take from it and evaluating that. That expertise, that human combination with AI, is where we see a lot of opportunity. Jen, any other thoughts on strategy in AI?

Jen: I think you’re spot on. I was at the Transform Conference this week in Las Vegas, and there was so much conversation about AI, and I thought one comment that really stood out to me is that AI is going to solve a lot of problems and it’s also going to show us problems we didn’t know that we had. And I think that’s going to be really interesting with strategy, when we have access to more data, when we have better tools to understand that data, we’re going to be able to have a more nuanced view of where there are gaps in engagement, where there are gaps in access, and I think we’re going to have a more targeted and tailored understanding of what our audiences need, and that’s going to create more need to figure out how to then really fill those in.

But it’s a big opportunity. So much data will now be at our fingertips with tools that can actually analyze that data really quickly. We’ll talk about that when we get to employee feedback, analyzing data quickly and getting insights in ways where it used to take us weeks and weeks and weeks to analyze manually. So much potential here.

Cassandra: So much potential, and Jen, just real quickly on that, the speed at which we’re getting this information, we’re finding out what works well, and we’re finding out where there are gaps really, really quickly, and the expectation is that we’re also going to fill those gaps really quickly. So, it takes a lot of hands-on-deck, still, a lot of human hands, to say, okay, well how are we going to solve this problem now that we’ve found it very quickly? And I think it’s just going to make everything better, but it’s definitely moving fast. Anything else on strategy we should touch on?

Jen: I think that covers it. Let’s talk about the next key, which is brand. And brand is all about the emotional response you create with your people. Do they feel connected to you? Do they recognize materials when they come from you? And it’s the visuals, it’s the language that you use, it’s all of what makes things really come to life. We have a couple examples of the types of benefits branding that we do with clients. We have the opportunity to work with some incredible organizations; we’re so proud of the clients we get to serve. So this is an example of a benefits brand that we created with the feel of the photography, and the illustrations…everything very intentional to help connect with folks.

And the next slide is another example of how this comes to life in the enrollment guide, the website—very specific feel and very recognizable brand that we created for this client. And that’s the type of quality and care that goes into creating that visual brand. And it’s not just about the visuals, it’s also about the tone and voice, the content, and that you are consistent with the feel of your materials, whether you’re writing them and reading them, or viewing them in a video, or looking at them on screen. So, there’s some awesome ways that AI is going to help us with brand and make it challenging. So, Cassandra, jump in on that please.

Cassandra: Absolutely. So, when it comes to easily interpreting a style guide, generating images or inspiration for your brand, even tone and voice, visual style, smart design tools…those things are all going to be a really big help, they’re going to add to that speed factor that AI is bringing, but when it comes to staying true to your brand, that’s where we see the human need, again, because as you’re seeing the AI tools are really good at synthesizing things, they bring everything together, but what they do is also homogenizing things. And when it comes to your brand, you don’t necessarily want that.

You want to have a brand that is going to stand out. You put all this effort and this time into creating something distinct that is going to speak to your people, that’s going to feel true to you and authentic to your organization, so you need to make sure that that visual style, that connection with your people is really still coming through. So, that’s where we see the speed and the tools being really great partners, but also you need some oversight there to make sure that it’s still standing out, it’s still making that impact that you want it to make.

Jen: Definitely. And I think the real risk, I think if you don’t pay attention to your tone and voice, is that everyone starts to sound the same, everyone starts to feel like a generic ChatGPT voice rather than your own unique organization. And so, protecting that brand voice is going to be really important and making it feel really authentic to your organization and your leadership and so forth. And speaking of leaders, there’s a big risk that we keep seeing here too.

Cassandra: We keep seeing a lot of information coming out about the authenticity and making sure that security is top of mind. Deepfakes are not just a thing in the consumer market or in your personal lives, your organization can experience this as well. So, understanding that part of that awareness is your brand, and making sure you have certain indicators that say this is what a communication from our organization is going to look like, and not just visually, but also taking that next step for implementing real security measures that are going to make sure that this is an authentic piece of your communications. We all know AI has generated bad photos and people without an ear, but it’s getting much better now, so that’s ever more important.

Jen: All right, let’s talk about the next key, which is website, or we think of this also as a single place to go for your benefits information. We see this as most effective when you have a highly branded, very engaging website that is outside of the firewall so you can access a good amount of information without having to authenticate and get into a personalized experience. We’ve had a lot of success with our clients in all industries and sectors with this approach, of making it easy to get information in people’s hands in a way that’s really compelling and matches that consumer experience.

So, the key is to have one place to go for all that information, and we have a couple visual examples so you can see how beautiful and nicely branded these websites can be. They can be global, they can serve lots of different populations, but the key is to get that benefits information easily accessible, at the fingertips of your employees and their families, no matter where they are, whether they’re sitting around the kitchen table, or at a doctor’s appointment, or on a work trip, or sitting at their desk at work. We want all of that to be super, super easy to access. And AI is going to do so much for making the online digital experience and that one place to access information more compelling and engaging and easy to understand.

Cassandra: It can provide significant improvements to existing websites, intranets, and knowledge management systems because it can improve search functionality and findability of information fast, and it’s great at collecting all that information. It can also support with content governance rules, removing outdated content and developing a plan for ongoing maintenance. AI has all of these tips and tricks that it can implement. The most critical part of the foundation though is how do we ensure that the information that AI is feeding quickly to everyone is accurate? So, it’s imperative that AI be integrated with these systems to ensure that seamless experience, and that those systems talk to each other, but it’s also imperative that all of that content being fed and pulling from is accurate, up-to-date, has just the information that people need, even if it’s not the way that they want it, which is what AI can really help with. It can develop a better way of explaining things, or an easier way, depending on somebody’s learning style, but that information is going to be core to what it pulls and puts out.

Jen: And we often talk with clients about their websites being the one source of truth, the place that we know is up to date and accurate all of the time. And that need to keep your source documents accurate and up to date 100% of the time is going to be even more critical with AI. And the AI tools right now are very good at searching and finding information, but they’re not good at knowing that’s actually the 2022 plan year document, and in another place the ‘25 document is posted, or that one paragraph was updated over here, but it wasn’t updated over there. So, that content governance and accuracy of the source content is going to be really key.

And I mentioned, again, I was at the conference this week that was all about AI, and another quote that I liked was, "The chief human resources officer is going to have to be the chief content officer as well," for all of the internal documentation of organizations to make sure that it has the right content governance in place, the right accuracy, and the people to make sure all of that is up to date. So, there’s so much potential here, but the content governance side of it’s going to be a big lift. And most organizations don’t have their content in a place that the AI search engines can just jump in and be accurate to start with. So, that’s a lot of the foundational work that we’re doing with clients right now. And it’s exciting work too, because when you get it in a good place, then the potential for these tools to do their job is tremendous.

Cassandra: That’s so true, Jen, and just thinking about organizations and the different types of employees they have and how AI works, if you have a separate set of qualifications or eligibility for certain benefits, AI might not necessarily know that when it’s pulling all of that source of materials, so that can be really, really confusing and not an enhancement to the employee experience. That’s why governance is so important. When you give something to people and they use AI with it, whether you intend them to or not, AI is going to find that information, and what is it going to tell them? What is it going to pull out of there? That’s why content governance is just so important. You need to know who’s getting what information, where it’s going, and then what they can do with it.

Jen: We had a good question come in along these lines, "How are you seeing brands boasting and integrating benefits on their outward facing careers site, around their corporate brand, DEIB, employee value, and so forth?" And that’s exactly the websites that we’re talking about. When you have that external channel that really shows the depth of what you’re offering your people, that can be really powerful. And we see a lot of organizations putting a big stake in the ground around their benefits and the value around that in the recruiting process. And I think we saw during the pandemic that so many more people wanted to work for organizations that they felt like they cared about them, and the benefits are a great tangible way to actually prove that you care, that it’s not just a word on a page, but you really have the benefits to support.

So, I think having all of that messaging integrated into the careers and the recruiting process makes a lot of sense. Another question that just came in on the websites is, "Are employers expanding their websites to go just beyond benefits, incorporating the broader scope of total rewards, the full EVP, and giving the talent acquisition team a unified platform?" And I would say yes, a lot of organizations are doing that. Cassandra, do you want to talk about one of your clients?

Cassandra: Yes, I have a few clients who are doing this. And it’s really important because whatever you have internally is externally, and if you’re not the one sharing that message, then you’re not controlling that narrative. So, it doesn’t hurt to share more information externally about who you are, what you have to offer your people, and how you are going to serve them. It makes it more attractive to prospects, but it also makes it a point of pride for your people who are already there. So, I think sharing it is really important, and there should be less fear around sharing that information because people are going to share it anyway. So, why don’t you be the one to tell the story and be the one to share it with both your recruits and your people.

Jen: Absolutely. All right, let’s keep going and talk about taking a marketing approach. So, this is the meaty section of the 10 keys, and we’re going to talk about feedback, prioritizing simplicity, communicating year-round using targeted messages, and the overall experience.

So, let’s talk a little bit about feedback. This is an area that we’ve been using AI tools for many years, and there’s so much here. So, when we talk about feedback in regards to the best practices, it’s really about, do you have mechanisms to be close to your participants and understand what is important to them? Whether it’s your employee audience, a retiree population, participants in a benefits fund, any of those audiences, we want to be close to them and know what matters to them. And we are big fans of doing focus groups, surveys, and user testing, and all of these are being enhanced by AI.

Cassandra: And we’ve been doing the AI-enhanced feedback for a while now. With a lot of our clients, we’re using technology and tools that allow us to take that feedback with your participants and analyze it super, super quickly. And that has allowed us to make in-the-moment changes to communications, making them better, making things connect and resonate with folks. So, as AI is being incorporated into many of these tools, that means there’s just so many more ways for us to collect and distill this feedback, and integrate it into your overarching strategy, and make those campaigns better and more aligned with your people. And the question is always, what are you going to do with all that data? We talked about this a lot in the beginning, about the speed and the data and everything that you’re getting, but how do you go from all of that information to actual insights and execution on that strategy? And also, how do you make sure that the tools you’re using to collect this feedback are not going to pose data privacy concerns? That’s a big one I hear a lot about.

Jen: You want to protect all of those information sources and use the right partners to do that. And we have two partners that we use: one for online focus groups— we just love doing online focus groups—where you can have 1,000 people at a time in a conversation. You remember the old days where it was a huge lift to get 10 people in the same room to do a focus group, and then one person dominated the conversation? Well, AI has just fixed that problem altogether. So, we have a great partner for those online focus groups. And then we also use some great partners for surveys, and then for online user testing, and all of those are now powered by AI to get better insights and faster coalition, and dissecting and understanding the data. So, lots of great stuff here. All right, let’s talk about the next area, which is simplicity.

So, we know benefits are complex, and we know that our people are not going to pour through detailed, heavy, legalistic information to try to understand those. It’s our job to really prioritize simplicity and make it so easy to understand the value, and for people to understand where they need to take action. And we have one of our favorite campaigns in this, something we did for Nvidia several years ago, when they introduced a big student loan benefit, "$30,000 to pay your student loans, hell yeah." That’s all you need to say. So, just super simple, super clear. A few more pieces from that campaign. Just really compelling, easy language, that jumps off the page for you. So, this is really important, and AI is going to help us make things simple in a lot of ways.

Cassandra: It really is good at synthesizing, and that can’t be said enough. It takes all of this information from so many different places and it streamlines your messages. It provides simple ways of getting technical language across. It can even evaluate what you’re writing and say, hey, let’s avoid jargon, let’s avoid these terms, let’s not communicate this way. One challenge we’re seeing is that AI-generated content can be quite verbose. It can be overly wordy and repetitive sometimes. So, that’s where it’s really critical to have a human, AI needs an editor, you need to just take a look and say, is this the easiest, most straightforward way to say it? And is this being communicated in a way that humans actually communicate? So, sometimes it will give you this big, long, lengthy answer, and you’re like, well, really all that needs to be said is this. So, simplicity is still a human skill.

Jen: And simplicity is so important that I think that that is what’s holding back some of the adoption of the existing AI chatbots and so forth. They’re just not quite there yet in terms of it being a true simple conversation, like if you were talking to a friend. But they’re going to get there very, very quickly, and we’re working with some partners to get to that ultimate experience, where it’s going to be easier to engage with that chatbot than it will be to access in any other way. And I think the expectations that people have for the ease and the simplicity of the experience are getting higher all the time, and we’re going to have to match those with the tools.

The next key is to communicate year-round through multiple channels. So, historically, most benefits communication happened during the open enrollment period, and we just piled on the information, and the content, and just threw a ton of benefits at people, and then we didn’t really talk to them again for 10 months. That has really shifted to communicate in a truly year-round fashion, with lots of channels and lots of ways to reach a diverse audience. And most organizations are now using a combination of traditional channels, like guides, and newsletters, and employee meetings, or tip sheets that go out to managers, all sorts of online, digital, interactive channels, and then some unexpected things, like maybe you’re doing something really fun that’s onsite, or you’re doing something really cool with video. But the key is to get that bite-size information out throughout the year, and to push people to know that there are resources available to them. And AI is going to help us a lot with this. Cassandra, tell us a bit about that.

Cassandra: So, with the introduction of all these new tools and platforms, it’s easier to generate all that year-round content because you have to put so much content out to make it bite-size, to make it consistent, to make sure you’re constantly giving opportunities for people to get this information. So, AI is really, really good at helping spin off ideas and inspiration based on what you feed it, and if you say, hey, this is a goal, these are the communications, this is what I want to tell people about, it can very quickly generate that information into multiple different channels, or content for different channels, quicker and at a lower cost for your organization, which is really, really great. But with all of those new tools and platforms, it’s really hard to know where to go for what. So, it becomes that same problem again, where there’s so many different places that you can get information, they’re not necessarily speaking to each other, and we know that there’s a tremendous amount of pressure to roll out all these new shiny tools, but the more that you add, and the more quickly you add, it becomes cluttered pretty fast.

So, while you’re thinking about this, you also need to be very aware that people will start tuning out because they just aren’t connecting or resonating with some of the content or the channels. Commitment and good use of a new channel or a tool is really just as important, so being focused, being really judicious in selecting those channels or selecting the content that you’re going to put out is going to be just as important, and having that solid foundation, that strategic reason behind why you’re communicating and what you’re sharing, so that AI can enhance that experience, not create too much noise.

Jen: Distract from it. That’s spot on. And that connects precisely to the next key, which is doing targeted messaging. And targeted messaging is a classic marketing technique. If Amazon’s going to try to get me to buy something, they’re going to send me a different message than Cassandra, and they’re going to send a different message to my next door neighbor. And all of that, that personalized and targeted messages that are in our consumer experience can be relevant in the benefits experience as well. And we have such diverse workforces, such diverse populations that we’re trying to serve. It’s just not one size fits all. So, tell us a little bit about this campaign.

Cassandra: So this campaign was one that we did with Lenovo. It was really exciting. We thought about where people were in their retirement journey, and the different ways that people think about retirement, and specifically a distinct age of when they start thinking differently. And that’s closer to retirement versus before you hit that age, and I believe that age is actually in the mid-40s, so it’s earlier than people expect. But people start to think deeply about retirement then, and before then their priorities are a lot different. So, we wanted to create targeted communications that were geared towards folks who weren’t ready to start thinking deeply about retirement in that way, but still needed to know, “my 401k is still important, but also I have all these other benefits and all of these other resources that I need to consider as part of my just general well-being and financial wellness and my retirement journey”.

And then, as you get closer to retirement, making sure you knew time’s ticking, we’re getting closer, you really got to buckle down and think about it, and here’s all the information you really want right now about your retirement because this is when you really care about it. So, that’s what we were able to do with these targeted communications, and they worked out really great. And then, we also did some targeting here, Jen.

Jen: Yeah, and this is one of the simplest ways to target, so we wanted to include it. This is a welcome guide for a new health plan. So, very simply, instead of sending out one big piece to everybody that has information about all of your health plans, in this example, we sent out a different version of a welcome guide for each health plan that folks enrolled in. It cut the size of those pieces down by a third, it made them really much, much easier for people to understand, and it was all relevant to the person who got that piece.

So, the targeted messaging can be in print pieces, it can be in the digital experience, it can be in email, it can be in really robust personalized experience, and AI is going to give us a ton of tools to do more with targeted and personalized messaging. And there’s a question that came in that said a “big pain point I hear is that people can’t find the right benefits information, or when it’s relevant to them, or remember that there’s a benefit that can help them in a particular situation. So, how does AI help with that and how can targeted messaging help with that?” Cassandra?

Cassandra: Yeah, I think, Jen, it goes back to those conversations we’ve been having about how people search for information. They’re not saying, “oh, I really need to talk to a behavioral health expert”. They’re saying, “I’m burnt out, or I’m having a really hard time right now, or I just can’t do it anymore”.

And what are we doing with AI to make sure that that connection of, “hey, I’m feeling this way”, there’s a benefit for that. That’s the opportunity there. And I think that’s really exciting, because right now that’s a very manual process of knowing and understanding and learning all of that through research, and that speed of that feedback that we can do along with the targeting to meet people where they are is really exciting.

Jen: Absolutely. And AI isn’t the only way to do this targeted messaging, I think sometimes it feels like an impossible task, but we have a lot of success with having situation-based or persona-based content on websites. So, instead of just saying, here are all the mental health benefits, say, here are the things that can help you be your best, here are the things that can help if you’re really struggling, here are the things that can help if you have kids, or giving people different scenarios that might resonate with them, to say, “oh, okay, this is what I’m going through, here’s how all of the benefits help”. So, AI is going to give us more ways to do this, but we still have a lot of tools that are just simple technology, simple targeting methods that can be deployed right now to help with that messaging and cut through the noise.

The next topic is all about the participant experience, or really all about tying all of these different pieces together, and we really think about this as understanding the journey that you’re trying to take people on, or the steps that they’re trying to take, and making it easy for them. And this is an example of a personalized onboarding experience that we created, where we’re really giving people nudges at just that right moment, helping them move through the process or know what is going to happen next. And AI has a lot of potential to improve this by creating that integrated experience.

Cassandra: That overarching experience is going to create easier paths to engagement, and it’s also going to bring to light what is not working and where those gaps are. So, getting AI to integrate and fill those gaps is going to be another area of opportunity that we see in creating that cohesive participant experience.

Jen: And when AI can start to actually do stuff for us, so not just tell me about that benefit, but actually go do that thing that’s kind of a pain to do, that I’ve been procrastinating on for weeks, that’s going to be where it really comes to life. And we know that there’s so many simple actions that we want people to take, and it’s just easy for them to not get done when people are juggling so much in their lives.

Cassandra: Absolutely. Everyone wants AI to be able to make that doctor’s appointment, fill the fridge, do all those things that can be just tedious day to day, and I think we’re getting there pretty quick.

Jen: Pretty soon. So, another question came in that I think is connected to the whole topic of taking a marketing approach, which is, "How do we start encouraging our internal teams to understand that communicating six times isn’t enough? What do I need to say to help my leaders get more communications out and be comfortable communicating more?" Cassandra, what’s your reaction to that?

Cassandra: Yeah, it’s interesting. You can develop the most robust supportive programs on Earth, but if nobody knows about it, they’re not going to use it. And that’s just one of those instances where once you start to communicate and you get people to actually use it, you can show the results, you can connect that data too. “Hey, we’ve communicated about this, we saw people continue to enroll, and now this population is healthier, they’re more productive, and they’re doing their best and bringing their best selves to work.” I think that’s really inspiring, and that’s the business case that you need to make there.

Jen: And I often tell our clients that we have to communicate so much that you are just sick of looking at the messages. You don’t want to see one more message about that benefit because you’ve reviewed 14 pieces that have gone out about it, and that’s just about the time that all of your people are starting to tune in. So, it really does take a high volume of communication, and that’s why it’s important to have the budget to really support what you’re doing. And so, budget is another piece of our 10 keys because we see so many organizations struggle to allocate the budget for communications because they’re not telling that story and really connecting it to the results.

So, we want to really focus on the value that those communications are driving. What are those real outcomes that you’re moving toward, particularly when it comes to engaging with healthcare, which can have such a big impact on spend. And we see that it is almost always, or I should say, I have never seen it be more than 1% of medical spend that can make a huge, huge impact on communications. So, having that right budget and being able to advocate for your budget is key to really getting the right infrastructure in place. And we know that we want AI to make things cheaper, simpler, faster, but how’s it going to impact budget, Cassandra?

Cassandra: I think initially it’s really good at finding those gaps and finding out what the needs are, and I think where we are right now with impact to budget is that AI is creating good benchmarking, so we know where things stand and what needs to be improved. How can we create better communications, a better experience, so that those needs are being addressed. And then, when we’re looking at that, connecting that data that we find to your budget, and saying, if we’re communicating about this, if we’re getting more participants involved in, let’s say, a diabetes prevention program, or something that is going to treat other chronic conditions, and we’re seeing that spend go down, that’s going to help make the business case for spending money on communications, but it’s also just going to be better for people in their lives.

So, it’s a powerful tool, it’s a powerful way to use data, and I think it’s always going to go back to those fundamentals of looking at why are we doing this? We’re implementing these solutions to really help people, so let’s make sure they’re helping people, and let’s make sure that they know about the help that they have.

Jen: Absolutely. And the tools are going to make us a lot more efficient in a lot of ways, and they’re going to create more opportunities in other ways. So, I think really protecting that budget that you have and being able to show that value is going to be more and more important. And I know you all were hoping that we’re going to tell you there’s one tool to use and you’re never going to have to think about communications again, but it’s not going to happen, at least not in the next few years that we can see. So, another piece of communication, and the final part of our 10 keys, is partners. So, really understanding how you use all of your partners to support your communication. You might work with a specialized agency, like us, or your consulting, or your administration firm’s communication practice.

You might have a group of freelancers who help you. You might tap into all of your vendors that are supporting communications in different ways. You may have a really close partnership with your internal communications team. All of those folks need to be really coordinated and aligned on what you are driving toward with your communication, and you need to really lean on them. And we often see that vendors are an underutilized resource in the communications ecosystem because they have a lot of tools that they can deploy to support you, and when you coordinate all of that, it really makes a big, big impact on what you’re trying to drive with communications. Cassandra, I know you have a client where we manage that vendor coordination and it’s really made a big, big impact.

Cassandra: Yeah. I just had a vendor partner call this morning with that client, and it’s really good to get everybody in the same virtual room, or physical room, and just talk about what are you working on. What do you have that’s going to overlap? How can we enhance that experience together? And that’s only going to be made better with those AI tools as well. So, if they’re doing something really interesting and unique, that’s improving the experience for your people, knowing about it, promoting it, connecting those dots is going to make it just 100 times more impactful.

Jen: And AI is going to give us good ways to coordinate vendors, it’s also creating a whole new area that we need to manage with the vendors, which is what are all the AI tools that your vendors have, and how are they using them? How can you use them? What kind of data are they using? That vendor coordination around AI is going to be a big piece, and there is a lot of opportunity here. What are you thinking in terms of coordinating all of those partnerships?

Cassandra: It’s a lot because we’re almost talking about AI for your AI. We have everybody using their tools, and then how are all of those tools going to be brought together? It really comes down to having those good relationships with your partners, making sure that everybody’s on the same page, knowing when what tools are being rolled out, and what they do, and how they’re going to really add to the process and the communications and the benefits and your entire ecosystem. So, making sure you’re having strong relationships with those internal stakeholders, with IT, with compliance, and everyone who is going to need to be involved in any of these AI tools that you’re bringing forward, also really, really important.

Jen: Absolutely. And one of the things we’re working on with clients, and I’ve peppered in a few examples of the ways we’re supporting clients, but one of the things too is really getting our arms around that whole vendor ecosystem when it comes to AI. And the questions that you should be asking your vendors are how they’re using your data, how their AI capabilities are working to enhance your experience, and all of that’s going to be really important for the security and just the confidence that you have in all of the ways that your whole ecosystem is working together. So, lots of opportunity there.

Cassandra: And that’s just a really good point, Jen, about trust, right? You want to make sure people are trusting that experience, and that’s why it’s so important that you present a united front to your people, especially with regard to AI.

Jen: Right. So, let’s round things out, just a final look at how all the 10 keys come together. I mentioned that we have a worksheet with quick multiple choice questions that we’ll send out so that you can evaluate how you’re doing against all of these, and we have lots more resources on our website about this, as well as our blog, and tons of information about benefits communication that we’re pushing out all of the time. So, please do go check out segalbenz.com, when you have time and want to learn more.

We have about 10 minutes left for questions, and we’ve had a lot of questions come in, and ones that we’ve seen ahead of time. So, if you do have a question and you haven’t put it in yet, feel free to put it in the Q&A box, and I think we’ll be able to get to quite a few of them. So, Cassandra, one of the questions that we got in advance was, "How can we use AI and ChatGPT and other AI tools to create more impactful content efficiently?" What’s your advice there?"

Cassandra: Well, first I think it’s really important to understand, can you use ChatGPT and those tools at your organization and what are your organization’s policies around using GenAI to develop certain communications, right? Then you want to think about what is the actual purpose. What are you trying to achieve? So, if you’re wanting to generate more interest in a specific benefit, you’re going to need to give that GenAI all the information it needs to create some really rich information about that benefit, and then thinking about your actual resources, so it can create all the ideas it wants, but who’s going to execute its ideas?

Do you need a design team? Do you need somebody to write more simple content? Do you need an editor? What else do you need to make the AI vision that it gives you really come to life? And who’s going to check that, right? Who’s the expert? Who’s going to make sure that all the information that it’s giving you is correct? So, I think there’s lots of opportunity there, but there’s also still a need for there to be a lot of oversight and review as part of that process, and partner is really important as well.

Jen: And ChatGPT, and Copilot, and the other tools, they’re great brainstorming partners, so it’s definitely a good way to get a lot of ideas to draft things very quickly and efficiently, and as Cassandra said, just make sure you have the real human checking it all and making sure it’s connected in with your strategy.

So, someone asked, "How can AI be used as decision support tools around choosing a medical plan?" And I can tackle that one initially. There are a lot of AI driven medical plan decision support tools, many of the benefits administrators have them, and we also have been doing a lot of decision support tools before GenAI became a thing. And we are really big fans of what I usually call lightweight decision support tools, where we’re asking a handful of questions and we’re helping people think about what they need to consider. We’ve seen, really over my whole career, this desire to have tons and tons of data crunching in the decision support tools, and ask people a ton of questions, and what we see is that it’s really hard to get people to engage with those tools, and many of the really robust decision support tools go unused, unfortunately.

There is certainly a lot of opportunity for AI to be incorporated into those decision support tools, but sometimes the simplest way to get people to engage is just with a handful of questions and a little bit of an interactive experience, and we’ve seen really, really good results with that approach. “What about our experience with summary plan descriptions and legal documents? Can we use AI to draft those types of materials?”

Cassandra: I think you need to ask your lawyer that, Jen, I don’t think AI is there yet. I really think that that’s still something that the experts, the human experts, need to handle.

Jen: Absolutely. And yes, our compliance team would say, “don’t go there, don’t go there yet”. I think the tools will get good at keeping track of policy documentation. There are some tools out there that are good at identifying where there’s conflicting information in documentation, so there are some good uses, but definitely the lawyers and the compliance experts need to be the ones with the hands-on, final sign-off, really make sure that those documents are accurate.

Cassandra: And I think that’s the biggest caution around all AI, right? It’s like, if you don’t know it’s wrong, how do you know? And that’s why that content is so important, and that’s why you definitely get your lawyers to look at the SPDs and all that stuff. They are the ones who know if it’s correct or not.

Jen: There are a couple questions about, "Can we feed the AI platform’s specific plan information, and really get them up to speed on our specific benefits?" And we’re getting there, we see there’s some good possibilities there, but still the accuracy needs that final human review. Cassandra, do you agree there?

Cassandra: I 100% agree.

Jen: A question just came in about, "Are we supporting clients with AI literacy training, or to bring them along to support adoption of AI?" And yes, absolutely. That is actually a lot of what we talked about on the last webinar, where I moderated with our colleagues from our organizational effectiveness and administration and technology consulting practices, and we talked a lot about the foundation that organizations need to set, and getting leaders literate with AI and really bringing the organization along with AI. So, please reach out, we’d love to talk more about that. And that webinar is available on segalco.com to listen to at any time. So, Cassandra, there’s a question about the websites that we looked at, and tell us about whether these sites are global and can they handle multiple languages, and then what about the AI handling multiple languages?

Cassandra: So, we have a lot of global websites that we work on that handle multiple languages, multiple countries, 30+ countries across the globe. Right now, a lot of translation is a very human-based, human intelligence process, but we are seeing that AI is becoming really, really good at translation, and that opportunity to have things quickly translated by AI is one that we’ve been looking into a lot. Jen, is there more that you want to say on that?

Jen: I think some of the AI tools are very good with different languages, and also giving more possibilities for reaching an employee base that might speak many, many, many different languages. But just like the conversation around the summary plan description, for the nuts and bolts plan information, you’re not going to want to let the AI do all the translation. If you’re talking about just promoting fun aspects of the benefits, promoting a well-being day, or something like that, that is more about just getting people to pay attention, then there might be lots of ways to use AI right away, but when it comes to that legal side of the documentation, definitely got to have the human eyes on it still.

Cassandra: I think people forget that AI is artificial intelligence, and I like to compare it to sugar and artificial sweeteners, there’s a big difference there. It’s not the same, there are times where an artificial sweetener is really, really critical and important, and actually for somebody’s health, maybe they can’t eat regular sugar, but there’s a time where you really need the real thing to do what you want to do. And I think language, legal, those are two aspects where it’s really important to have the real thing.

Jen: And it is really meaningful to folks to communicate to them in their own language. Even, many, many of our clients with populations in the US have many languages that their materials are shared in, and it means a lot to folks that you’re taking that step to reach them in their native language. And it also helps with engagement. It’s hard to get people to really engage with their benefits if they don’t fully understand them. So, I definitely encourage clients to prioritize getting content into the languages that people are speaking day to day.

Great. Well, we are just at the top of the hour. We had a couple questions about drafting acceptable use policies, and how we actually implement against AI, and those are also topics that we touched on in the last webinar that we’d be happy to share more and help with those conversations around how you really get the right policies in place. And then, one question just came in that said, “It seems easy to adapt the same content across PDF, PowerPoint, video, do we have tips on how we can repurpose it in SharePoint, or an HRIS communication widget, or other one-off platforms without recreating the content?”

I think that really touches on what Cassandra was saying of how AI can be really good at creating iterations of something. If you have the newsletter article, make me three Slack posts that describe the benefits. Or brainstorm with me five snappy headlines that we can use on our intranet banners. Or put an image that can be displayed on the enrollment site that communicates a benefit. So, the AI can be a good brainstorm and output partner on those types of things. Anything else you would add there?

Cassandra: No, I think that’s, Jen, it’s really good at iterating, just making sure that it’s actually suited and nuanced and appropriately messaged for the audience is key.

Jen: Great. All right. Well, Cassandra, thank you so much for joining me, it’s been very fun chatting with you about all of this.

Cassandra: Yeah.

Jen: And thank you to everyone who joined live and who is watching the recording. We love this topic, we really enjoy sharing all the information with you, and please reach out with questions. Check out the resources that we have online. This is a quickly changing area, and we will be sharing more and more details through our blog, and emails, and so forth. So, please reach out and keep in touch. And Cassandra, thanks again.

Cassandra: Thank you.