Employee benefits are an important element of building an attractive compensation package to help acquire and retain top talent. However, in order for your benefits offerings to appear valuable to employees, they need to know exactly how they work and why they’re important to have.

However, this can be challenging for many businesses that have a number of competing priorities to manage. Without the right strategies in place, the investments you’re making in your business might not be getting the returns you had hoped for.

Thankfully, there are some successful strategies you can follow that will ensure your employees stay educated about their benefit options while building a better sense of appreciation for the value they bring.

Keep Your Messaging Clear

Although many new employees may already have experience choosing benefits coverage options when working with previous employers, it’s important to remember that not all younger individuals entering the workforce may have a clear understanding of how their benefits options work.

This is why it’s important to provide clear and concise information regarding how benefit offerings work and any requirements employees need to meet during open enrollment periods. Below are a few strategies you can use to help you achieve this:

• Use Easy-to-Understand Messaging – Insurance providers often use more complex language when describing benefits coverage. Take the time to translate these into layman’s Terms so that all employees understand what they’re actually signing up for and how their premiums work.
  
• Provide Helpful Examples – A great way for employees to understand how their benefits work is by giving them some example scenarios they can relate to. For example, highlighting the costs of going to a doctor once every three months or getting monthly medication with or without benefits coverage is an easy way to highlight the long-term value of healthcare benefits that most people will relate to.
  
• Summarize Benefits Offerings – Going through large amounts of benefits paperwork can be intimidating for many employees, especially when they’re just trying to find out what types of coverage are right for them. To make this process easier, provide a quick reference summary that highlights the main features of each benefit offering.

Leverage Decision Support Tools

Another way employers can help take the complexity out of benefits choices is by providing access to various decision support tools. These tools make it easier for employees to budget their potential spending throughout the year.

Many modern decision-support tools allow employees to enter details specific to their use case and provide recommendations on how to structure their benefits. This adds more self-serve capabilities to employees during open enrollment periods and minimizes the need to delay coverage selection while waiting for one-on-one support.

Provide Ongoing Support and Resources

It’s important to look for ways to provide more benefits and guidance throughout the year as needed. As the business grows and the number of employees increases, these resources will be invaluable for helping employees access the relevant information they need without being overly reliant on additional assistance from HR teams. 

Utilizing Benefits Call Centers

Benefits call centers are a great way to provide the one-on-one support that certain employees need when better understanding their benefits options. These call centers consist of a team of insurance professionals who can answer any benefits-related questions and guide employees in making the best coverage decisions.

Below are some of the reasons why leveraging a benefits call center can be a great idea for your business:

• Individualized Support When Needed – Ensuring access to a benefits call center is readily available for your employees lets them get the individualized support they need whenever necessary. This can lead to significant savings in time and resources for your HR team, knowing that employees have a dedicated source they can go to whenever they need more information or help deciding on an optimal coverage arrangement for themselves and their families.

• Specialized Expertise – Call center professionals have specialized training and expertise that makes them capable of understanding a wide range of benefits-related use cases. This means that employees can be open with them about their specific needs, knowing that they’re getting the best information possible when looking to maximize the value of their benefits.
  
• High Accessibility – Another great thing about benefits call centers is that they’re often accessible to employees when they’re outside of work. Many call centers will also offer multiple ways to get connected – whether through phone, email, or scheduled one-on-one appointments.

Gather Employee Feedback

To gauge how effective your benefits education initiatives are with your employees, it’s important to gather regular feedback from them. While business budgeting may be outside their purview, this doesn’t mean that you can’t get valuable perspectives from employees on which benefit options are most important to them and if they clearly understand all their options.

There are a variety of ways to create a feedback loop with employees. Conducting surveys allows you to gather quantitative data on employee satisfaction and identify areas for improvement. You could also create open forums during company meetings to provide employees with a platform to voice their opinions directly to HR or other key stakeholders.

By actively gathering employee feedback, you’re able to extract important insights to help you customize your benefits communication strategies while also proving to employees that their opinions matter to upper management.

Help Your Employees Get the Most Out of Their Benefits

Providing benefits to your employees is an investment in the success of your business. However, to make sure your employees appreciate the value of the benefits offerings they’ve received, it’s important to prioritize educating them about their coverage options throughout the year. By following the strategies discussed, you’ll ensure your employees get the most out of their benefits and help the business get the best return on their investment.

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm (https://getebm.com) a leading provider of employee benefits solutions, Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology-driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.

In a very competitive labor market, attracting and keeping the best staff is not always easy. Surveys and studies have shown time and time again that although salaries are important they are not usually the top priority for the top talents.

The employment package you offer them has to be comprehensive and provide them with some other benefits too, as these were more crucial to most people.

A Good Balance Between Work And Life

Although most talented people will not mind putting in extra hours if they are needed, overall they are looking for a good balance between work and the rest of their life. This could mean having flexible working hours so they can attend to getting children to or from school for instance. If they have a sudden disaster in their life they need to know that they will not lose their job because they have had to take a day off and that they can make up the hours over a period of time.

Further Opportunities

In the past people used to start a job when they left school and still be working there when they retired. This was nothing unusual at all, but these days it is a rarity. Staff are usually looking for ways to improve their career and to move up the ladder when the opportunities arise. If there are good staff that you want to keep, then you have to create those opportunities for them.

Encourage them to further their education in your line of business and nurture a culture of learning within the business.

Little Perks Can Have Big Results

Never underestimate how much employees appreciate some of the little perks. Things such as a good restroom, bowls of fresh fruit around the workplace, a free coffee for everyone at lunchtime or something else that does not cost much financially, but will mean a lot to your workforce.

Things like this show that you care about them, and with so many bosses out there who put profit before anything else, this is something they will really appreciate and it will make them more likely to stay in your employment.

Health And Wellness

This one might seem obvious, but it is not to all employers. You can be certain that providing your employees with a good health and wellness package will be one of the biggest encouragements not to leave your company.

For instance, if the has access to something like telehealth, they could get advice really quickly if they have a health issue that needs dealing with. The package you offer should also include cover for teeth and eyes as well if you want them to be really well looked after.

Research has shown over and over again that healthy staff are happier staff and that the happier they are the more productive they will be. This might seem like a big financial investment, but you will see the returns of providing a healthcare package in fewer sick days and the retention of more of your workers.