Custom Open Enrollment Communication

Business Benefits Group can help employers to create custom open-enrollment communications. We can tailor these communications to meet a company’s needs through a variety of options including comprehensive benefit guides, live or prerecorded webinars, email templates, PowerPoint presentations, flyers and more. By using custom open enrollment communications help employees to become more informed about the benefits options being offered. This can help to increase plan participation while also increasing employee satisfaction, overall.

An Overview of Custom Open Enrollment Communications

Research has shown that an appealing benefit package can help attract and retain top talent. But if a business’s employees are unaware of these benefits, then they will be unable to take advantage of them. This could result in a less motivated workforce and a decrease in plan participation. Using customized open enrollment communications has been known to help to increase overall job satisfaction by educating employees about all of their benefits options. Additionally, custom open enrollment communications can influence how employees view their benefits options and motivate them to enroll in the plans. BBG can work with employers to design an internal marketing plan to ensure that the value of the benefits plan being offered is being properly communicated to staff.

Targeted Communications

Before embarking on a customized open enrollment communication campaign, it is recommended that employers take some time to learn more about their employees and how they use their benefits. Using a benefits consultant during this learning period can be very beneficial to the process. Some data that businesses can review and consider include workforce demographics and the types of benefits that each group uses most. Additionally:

• Older employees may be more interested in more comprehensive prescription plans or retirement benefits
• Employees with families may be looking for plans with low deductibles.
• Employees without a family may want a high deductible health plan, with options for a medical savings account
• Workers who are continuing their education may be interested in other benefits, like student loan reimbursement plans.

By learning more about the specific benefit needs and interests of each group of employees, then businesses can more effectively target their communications to them. Organizational communications can speak to each group’s needs and promote the options that are most important to them—helping to highlight how their needs are being considered and accounted for. Planning an overall organizational communications strategy using this method, can help to ensure that employees will receive the benefits information that matters most to them.

Simple, Straightforward Messaging

Benefits packages can be complicated due to factors such as the various choices and price levels. A customized open enrollment communication can explain the plans in a simple and straightforward manner while still conveying pertinent information. They should also consider how best to communicate potentially negative communication. A customized open enrollment communication can help employers to convey the rationale for the company’s overall benefits package and highlight various features.

Because the ins and outs of each plan may be complex, communication should be tailored to help a business’s employees understand their options. This can include clear, concise information about the plans, including checklists and tools to help employees make decisions. Further information about the details of each plan can be made available, but not included in the initial message.

Multiple Communication Methods

While it may be tempting to simply craft an email and send it out to the entire company, different forms of communication may help employees make better decisions about their benefits packages. This generally includes webinars, meetings, flyers, mailings, social media, internal website postings, emails, ora hotline that employees can call with questions or concerns. Employers may choose to post flyers around the workplace that convey the information in a simple manner, with a follow-up email that includes links to the full plan details. The type of messaging will depend on the size of a company and the budget available for these communications. BBG’s Benefits Consultants can collaborate with employers in order to determine how to best reach employees.

Timing Is Everything

When it comes to open enrollment, the timing of communications is incredibly important. A custom campaign will start with a deadline for enrollment, typically provided by the benefits administrators. Once that date has been established, then employers can plan a marketing campaign that gives employees ample time to review all of their options in detail and make decisions prior to enrollment. If employers are unable to budget enough time, then plan participation may decrease.

Advantages of Working With a Benefits Consultant

Customized open enrollment communications can be critical to how a business’s employees perceive the benefits package being offered. Benefits Consultants like the ones at BBG can research a business’s employee demographics in order to determine how to best target internal communications. They can also draft the messages in a way that highlights the value and advantages of each option, which will ultimately result in greater employee satisfaction and plan participation.

Contact Business Benefits Group Today!

Employers who would like to learn more about the benefits of custom open-enrollment communication can contact Business Benefits Group by giving us a call or sending us a message online today.