Consider this: the average person spends about an hour a day watching Netflix, but less than 30 minutes a year making their employee benefit selections. You read that right. Two-thirds of benefits-eligible employees report spending 30 minutes or less reviewing their enrollment options, and 42% admit they only spend 20 minutes.
So, what can employers do to communicate their carefully crafted mix of benefits and ensure employees make the best enrollment decisions?
After all, open enrollment is an annual showcase of all the beyond-the-paycheck benefits that come with the job, helping to drive employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Plus, when employees feel supported in making informed benefits decisions, they’re more likely to use those benefits effectively, which fuels your company’s return on its benefits investment.
Making the most of open enrollment (and your benefits strategy overall) starts with a solid employee engagement strategy built on the following insights, best practices, and actionable tips.
Today’s employee reality
Information overload is the modern norm across personal and professional lives. Your benefits communications aren’t just competing with other work messages; they’re competing with everything demanding your employees’ attention throughout the day.
The shift to remote and hybrid work adds another layer to this challenge, fundamentally changing how employees receive and process information. What once might have been communicated through hallway conversations or break room bulletin boards now competes with Slack notifications, Zoom fatigue, and the challenge of reaching employees across different time zones and work patterns. In other words, the traditional “all-hands meeting” approach to benefits communication is no longer enough.
The open enrollment reality check? Benefits decisions get made amid project deadlines, family responsibilities, financial pressures, and personal commitments. That 30-minute window isn’t a choice; it’s sometimes the only available time employees have.
The good news about benefits
Modern benefits packages extend beyond traditional offerings like medical, life, dental, and disability insurance to include caregiving support, mental health resources, financial wellness programs, flexible work arrangements, and family planning assistance. These benefits provide meaningful support that can be tailored to fit an employee’s specific needs.
But, for many employers, the challenge is how to convey the information to help employees understand their options and make informed decisions for themselves and their families.
To meet the challenge, open enrollment communications and benefits enrollment experiences are a strategic opportunity. First, employers must catch the attention of busy employees. Then, they must educate and inform without creating information overload. Done well, employees are more aware of the benefits available to them, more confident in making their selections, and more likely to use (and appreciate!) the benefits they enroll in.
4 game-changing steps to open enrollment success
1. Start with strategic benefits design
The most effective open enrollment experiences begin long before the annual enrollment period as employers review and enhance their company’s benefits program. The foundation for curating a successful benefits offering starts with understanding the unique needs of your workforce.
Employee surveys and needs assessments reveal patterns that might surprise you. Seeking regular employee input can help identify gaps and unmet needs that are specific to your employee population.
Understanding employee wants and needs related to benefits enables you to design benefit portfolios that truly resonate. By taking a data-driven approach, you also gain insights into the challenges your employees face.
When considering enhancements to your program, think beyond the traditional benefits related to physical health or retirement. Explore options to expand employee assistance programs (EAPs), offer caregiving support, and provide financial wellness tools.
For example, if your company has a sizeable Gen Z and Millennial population, benefits like child care resources and backup child care make popular additions, especially when paired with strong maternity and paternity leave programs and flexible work schedules. And caregiving benefits aren’t just about child care … All employees can benefit from caregiving resources, including access to care specialists, vetted caregivers, and adult backup care they can use to support aging parents.
2. Craft comms for real-world consumption
The time constraints your employees face are real, so it’s important to build communication strategies that work within them. That means leading with scannable information, making more details easily accessible, and taking a multi-channel approach to message delivery.
Work with benefits providers to provide communications that highlight the solution first, then the features. For example, don’t just share a list of mental health support services available through your EAP; look for opportunities to feature real-life stories that show the benefits in action. Communications that feature a relatable scenario help make benefits more concrete and appealing.
In addition, today’s employees expect and appreciate personalized communications, with 54% of employees expressing a desire for more personalized benefit recommendations. Interactive decision support tools can help simplify complex choices with lifestyle assessments, cost calculators, and comparison tools.
Most importantly, avoid jargon and industry speak that confuse rather than clarify. Insider terms can create barriers for employees making enrollment decisions. Whenever possible, translate complex concepts into plain language. For example, instead of saying “you may incur out-of-network penalties,” try “services may cost more when you choose an out-of-network provider.”
When you have to use technical terms, pair them with simple explanations and examples to help employees understand both the meaning and the impact.
3. Inform, educate, repeat
Think of your employee benefits communication strategy as a year-round effort. During annual open enrollment season, focus on delivering essential information: benefit basics, key features, and employee costs. Make it easy for employees to explore additional information as needed with convenient access throughout enrollment communications and decision-support tools. This approach respects time constraints while ensuring comprehensive information is readily available.
Don’t go silent after open enrollment wraps up. Deliver education-focused communications throughout the year to boost awareness of different benefits, highlight impact stories, and showcase educational resources and tools.
Across the communications plan, use a variety of formats to align with diverse employee learning styles and preferences. Mix digital communications, online resources, apps, and videos with webinars and live support for real-time questions and answers. Multi-channel strategies also enable targeted messaging and segmentation based on employee demographics and life stages.
Within your year-round benefits communication plan, build in touchpoints that reinforce value and encourage utilization. Consider trigger-based messages that remind employees about relevant benefits and resources tied to life events.
For example, the use of parental leave after the birth or adoption of a baby can trigger a communication featuring reminders about child care resources. Similarly, peak season or a stretch of overtime work could be followed with a message about self-care benefits and caregiver support resources.
4. Measure what matters
Open enrollment success shouldn’t be measured only by participation rates. Define metrics that reveal whether your communications are working and where you can improve.
Track engagement across different communication channels to understand what resonates with your workforce. Are employees spending more time with interactive tools or downloadable guides? Do webinar attendees show higher satisfaction scores than those who only engage with email communications? These types of data points help you optimize your communication mix and invest resources where they’ll have the biggest impact.
The most valuable insights come from understanding not just who enrolled, but how confident employees feel about their decisions and whether they’re using their benefits effectively.
Post-enrollment surveys and focus group discussions can uncover whether employees felt they had enough information to make good decisions, which communication methods were most helpful, and where there may be information gaps.
Finally, benefits utilization data provides the ultimate measure of communication effectiveness. If employees aren’t using the benefits they enrolled in, it can indicate a gap in understanding rather than a lack of need. Monitor utilization and use the information to inform and adjust your year-round education efforts.
What open enrollment success looks like
- Employee surveys that reveal the benefits your workforce actually needs
- Messages that emphasize real-life impact over plan features
- Year-round education that keeps benefits top-of-mind
- A feedback loop that tells you what’s working and what’s not
When you adapt and implement these four game-changing steps, you see changes. Instead of employees speed-clicking through their benefit selections, they’re texting their spouse about the backup child care benefit.
Rather than ignoring a list of EAP resources, they see themselves in the real-life scenario you shared and click through to the website to explore. Instead of waiting until next year’s open enrollment, they’re joining a lunch-and-learn webinar to learn more about senior care support or legal services based on their evolving needs.
But the biggest thing you’ll notice is that open enrollment stops being something that happens to your employees and becomes something that helps them confidently solve challenges and address their family’s needs. That’s the moment your benefits strategy becomes what you always intended: real support for real people.
Reach out to explore how caregiving benefits can add value to your benefits program.
