Stay on top of the latest trends in benefit enrollment.
Employees aren’t easy to satisfy when it comes to their benefits. However, they are willing to help cover the cost of what they want.1 Employers who use their employees’ willingness to help pay for benefits as an opportunity to improve employee satisfaction where benefits and enrollment are concerned will achieve results. To assist, we breakdown what employees want and share strategies to help employers meet those demands during enrollment time.
What Employees Want
Employees have strong opinions about their benefits. When it comes to enrollment, it’s not about having wellness programs or commuter benefit plans, although Clarity Benefit Solutions commuter benefits and commuter benefits administration are popular.
It’s about a few particular desires1:
• Employees want to understand their benefits
• Employees want personalized benefits that adapt to their lifestyle as it changes
• Employees want to enroll in benefit plans with assistance when and where it’s convenient
Employers will create a happier and more productive workforce by considering these desires and improving their benefit offerings and enrollment process.
How to Address Employee Demands
Keeping up with employee demands leaves many employers tired and frustrated. Fortunately, staying ahead of trends doesn’t need to be a stressful process. Partnering with a benefit administration company alleviates employer stress and increases employee satisfaction. While you shop around for a partner you like, consider implementing these two strategies to meet employee demands:
• Increase the length of time employees have to enroll.
Giving your employees more time to enroll is the best way to address their desire to understand their benefits. According to the 2014 Colonial Life Employee Education and Enrollment survey, employees are happier with their understanding of their benefits when given more time to process them.
Short open enrollment windows make it difficult for employees to achieve the level of understanding they desire before a decision needs to be made. Lengthening your enrollment period provides more time for employees to learn about their benefit options. It also addresses their need for personalized benefits—the more time they spend reviewing potential benefits, the more likely they are to select the plan that address their unique needs.
• Adopt decision-support tools.
Offering employees the chance to interact with decision-support tools addresses their desire to enroll with assistance when and where it’s convenient for them. At Clarity, we provide such a decision-support tool. Her name is Emma. Emma is an online resource. When employees opt to enroll in a benefit plan, she asks them a series of specific questions. Based on their answers, she provides them with a number of plan options that meet their needs. Employees can then compare them and select the option they feel is best.
Employees can interact with Emma on their computer, phone, or tablet 24/7.
Today’s employees demand more than an email and information packet. Make sure your workplace provides them with the solutions and assistance they seek.
Stay Ahead of the Curve
Meeting employee demands is much easier than it seems. However, you want to be sure that you’re meeting them in the most up-to-date way possible, particularly where decision-support tools are concerned. That’s why it’s in your best interest to connect with a benefits administration team who can steer you down the right path and provide you with the most current online tools. Connect with us today so we can help you get started.
1. MetLife 12th Annual U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Survey, 2014.
