Make it easy to stay

Having a top-notch employee benefits
plan in place can play a crucial role in
attracting and retaining top talent.

After all, in today’s workplace environment, employee benefits represent a significant portion of an employee’s financial
security. In addition to having a strong
employee benefits plan in place, it is important to educate employees about the program’s virtues. The more informed they
are, the more comfortable they will be with
the plan, which can ultimately lead to
increased job satisfaction levels.

“Employee satisfaction with benefits
offered by their employer has a direct correlation with job satisfaction and loyalty,”
points out Stephen J. Peck, president of the
benefit services division of Kapnick
Insurance Group.

Smart Business spoke with Peck about
how to effectively design a communications campaign that educates and informs
employees about their benefits program.

Why is employee communication in regards
to benefits so important?

For many employers, the No. 1 employee
benefit objective is to retain employees.
Unfortunately, a very small percentage of
employees, just 16 percent, believe that
their company’s benefit communications
effectively educate them about their benefits, according to a recent MetLife study.
Couple this with the fact that 63 percent of
employees spend less than 30 minutes
making a benefit decision and less than an
hour researching their options before buying. Employees spend more time, 1.3
hours, researching/buying a pair of shoes.

What can be done to improve employee communications?

First of all, we should not look at employee communications as a one time a year
event during open enrollment. Employee
benefits is an ever-changing landscape
where employers are asking employees to
migrate from a passive role to an active
participant. Most companies, including the
largest, are increasing co-pays and
deductibles. As such, employees need
communication at different times throughout the year and in different ways. We all
process information differently. Therefore,
a mixture of print, electronic and in-person
communication offers the best chance for
success.

How has the Web impacted the way that
employee communications are handled?

Online communication can definitely
help with disseminating real-time information. It is a very efficient way of providing
specific information, such as plan documents, research tools and calculators. Not
to overly generalize, but younger workers
tend to be more comfortable receiving
information through the Web or online.
Having said this, I think it is shortsighted to
think that Web-based communication is
the preferred method. At times, communication through the Web can desensitize the
human element. There is still unbelievable
power with face-to-face communication,
especially when dealing with plan changes
or complicated programs, such as an HSA.

How should a company go about designing
an effective employee communications campaign?

I have heard the term ‘planned redundancy’ used to describe an effective campaign.
What this means is having a consistent
message, presented throughout the year,
using various channels and mediums. As
mentioned earlier, a combination of print,
Web/online and in-person communication
is the best mix. Therefore, a typical campaign may include quarterly newsletters,
bimonthly lunch and learns, an annual benefit fair, periodic payroll stuffers, and
Webinars that all supplement the traditional open-enrollment season. The ultimate
goal is to improve employee understanding
and awareness of the employer-sponsored
benefits. When this is accomplished, you
can significantly increase employee retention and reduce the internal cost of human
resource administration.

Once in place, how should an employee
communication campaign be evaluated?

The best way to measure the effectiveness of employee communications is to
survey both the employees and the HR
manager. We have found it helpful to provide the employees with a short survey,
about two to three questions, after an
enrollment meeting. Questions like, ‘Do
you clearly understand the benefits provided to you?’ and, ‘Did you read the payroll
stuffer that was sent to your home about
the open enrollment meeting?’ These types
of questions make it clear if the communication materials were truly effective. On
the other hand, the survey to the HR manager should be given a week or so after the
open enrollment meeting. This survey
would include questions such as, ‘How
many employees came to you and asked
questions regarding their benefits after the
enrollment meeting?’ and, ‘Did the communication materials provided to you make
open enrollment more manageable?’ The
answers to all of these questions are the
key to tweaking the program for next year
to ensure both employer and employee satisfaction.

STEPHEN J. PECK is president of the benefit services division
of Kapnick Insurance Group. Reach him at (888) 263-4656 ext.
1147 or [email protected]. Kapnick Insurance Group is a
member of Assurex Global, an international network of insurance
and employee benefit brokers.