Employee Benefits Communication: What Clients Need to Know

Quick look: With open enrollment season approaching, it’s an ideal time to support clients in delivering clear, effective messaging that empowers employees to make informed benefit decisions and strengthens their recruiting and retention. Explore common communication mishaps, five best practices for boosting engagement, and how partnering with a professional employer organization (PEO) can simplify open enrollment while helping you grow your book of business.

Help your clients make this open enrollment the best one yet.

Our free guide, “Open Enrollment Communication Made Easy: Best Practices for Employers,” features expert-backed tips and ready-to-use customizable templates.

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Open enrollment season is right around the corner, and for many small and midsized businesses (SMBs), it can be a complex and time-consuming process. This presents another valuable opportunity for brokers to deepen their client relationships by providing benefits communication strategies that engage employees and simplify decision-making.

Here, you’ll find insights on the impact of clear benefits messaging, common communication mistakes, five best practices for clients to follow, and how partnering with a professional employer organization (PEO) can help SMBs streamline open enrollment, access competitive plans, and ensure every detail is managed.

The value of optimized messaging

The right benefits package and properly communicating those offerings is vital to your client’s success. Today’s employees value their benefits, sometimes as much as their pay rate, and are willing to change employers to get what they need.

However, only about half of workers feel completely or very educated about their benefits, and two-thirds think their companies ineffectively promote or explain their benefit offerings. These figures signal an opportunity for clients to hone how they communicate their benefit package’s worth.

Common messaging mistakes

It’s all too easy for employee benefits communications materials to become ineffective. Years pass, materials become obsolete, and workers’ communication preferences change.

Here are some common slipups clients may experience:

• Outdated benefits materials: As plan details change and branding updates occur, benefits materials quickly become out of date.
• Low information retention: Employers sometimes compress all benefit information into one lengthy email or presentation that employees skim, risking missed deadlines and other essential details.
• Irregular interactions: While communication during open enrollment is critical, year-round correspondence can remind staff about what’s available to them and help them navigate medical situations as they arise.

5 tips for benefits communication success

Brokers play a key role in helping clients stay informed about the latest benefits communication best practices. These five tips can help them increase engagement and enrollment, manage costs, and attract and retain talent:

1. Prioritize personalization

Today’s workforce spans multiple generations, and with that diversity comes a variety of communication and benefit preferences. For maximum impact, clients must cater to a mixed workforce by sending the right message, to the right employee, through the right channel. Research reveals that older generations favor face-to-face meetings and phone calls, while younger generations often prefer instant messaging.

Business leaders should also keep an updated master list of benefits in a shared place, such as on the company intranet or a common Microsoft Teams or Slack channel. This list should include current plan details and who employees can contact with questions or concerns.

Personalization must also be considered when designing benefits packages. While individual preferences vary, here are the plans that tend to resonate with each generation:

• Baby Boomers: Financial planning, comprehensive healthcare benefits, and ancillary medical coverage
• Generation X: Strong retirement savings plans, caregiving support, and financial wellness support
• Millennials: Flexible work arrangements, student loan assistance, and legal plans to assist with homebuying, estate planning, etc.
• Generation Z: Mental wellness plans, pet insurance, and student loan repayment programs

2. Say less, more often

Employee benefits communications are most effective when broken into digestible, bite-sized chunks rather than a single, lengthy message. Emails should ideally include 50-125 words and a clear call-to-action (CTA).

Clients should also strive to make messaging a priority year-round, not just during open enrollment. Quarterly email campaigns can remind employees about available plans and encourage usage. As staff’s personal circumstances change, once-irrelevant benefits could now provide great value. And it’s always a good idea to remind workers to use their flexible spending account (FSA) funds before they expire annually.

3. Be clear and actionable

Messages should include basic language and be free of human resources (HR) jargon and acronyms. These unfamiliar terms, as well as detailed plan descriptions, can be difficult for employees to understand.

Additionally, communications should clearly and promptly explain what’s at stake for plan participants and include a strong CTA so that employees know what steps they can or should take. For instance, an email encouraging workers to make their annual benefit selections should emphasize the deadline for enrollment and that if missed, staff risk losing coverage.

4. Adapt communications for a hybrid world

Over half of employees have a hybrid schedule, and 28% are exclusively remote. To accommodate these arrangements, clients should ensure benefits-related meetings are accessible for in-office, hybrid, and remote employees.

Many companies opt to host either completely virtual meetings or in-person sessions that allow remote workers to join via videoconference. Some tips for these gatherings include:

• Have a designated place or person for people to ask questions
• Keep the presentation as concise as possible
• Record the meeting and share it with all employees afterward
• Demo any potentially complicated processes during the meeting
• Incentivize attendance with giveaways
• Prepare and rehearse for the meeting one week ahead

5. Embrace feedback

Communication is a two-way process, and employees’ feedback on their benefits and messaging preferences is a powerful tool. These opinions enable clients to improve future campaigns and tailor benefits packages to their workforce.

Clients can administer employee pulse surveys to examine what’s useful to their workers and what’s not. They may also host an anonymous suggestion box, allowing staff to provide feedback without any pressure.

To unlock more tips and ready-to-use templates for your clients, download ExtensisHR’s free guide, “Open Enrollment Communication Made Easy: Best Practices for Employers.”

ExtensisHR: Dedicated to optimizing benefits communications all year long

Planning year-round benefits campaigns and staying up to date on messaging best practices can be a challenge for time-strapped SMBs. That’s where brokers can make a big difference. By aligning clients with a PEO like ExtensisHR, you can take the stress out of benefits communications while strengthening your portfolio and growing your book of business.

ExtensisHR’s in-house employee benefits experts proactively track industry trends and guidelines, offering comprehensive services designed to enhance every aspect of a client’s benefits journey:

• Benefits administration and management: We enable SMBs to access Fortune 500-level plans at competitive rates and provide the resources and expertise to simplify management, communication, and compliance.
• Modern technology: Our mobile-first Work Anywhere® platform allows clients to quickly run custom reports and employees to review and enroll in benefits from anywhere, at any time.
• Employee Solution Center (ESC): Our team of experts can guide worksite employees through the open enrollment process, compare and discuss plan features, and more.
• Complimentary recruiting: From job advertisements to offer letters, we help clients communicate the value of their benefits during the entire hiring process, strengthening their ability to attract top talent.

By partnering with ExtensisHR, brokers can enable SMBs to transform benefits communications into a powerful tool to fuel their growth and success. Contact us today to learn more about working together.