Why is benefits communication and education so important for your company and your employees? Employees consistently rate benefits as one of the key factors influencing their job satisfaction.To drive the bottom line, your business needs satisfied, productive employees. When you can improve the benefits communication process and its results, you stand to gain a competitive edge in retaining and recruiting quality employees.

Research indicates employers tend to not place high importance on benefits education —and aren’t showing signs of changing their mindsets anytime soon:

Most employers don’t see benefits education as a critical issue and are unlikely to take the initiative to improve their communication efforts.

With so many other pressing concerns, most employers won’t make it high-priority to improve benefits communication and education for employees in the near future.

Here’s a big opportunity to improve this communications gap. Find a good voluntary benefits partner who can deliver benefits communication and education to your employees. This way, you can hand over the communication responsibility and provide effective benefits communication at little to no direct cost to you. Here are some of the best practices in benefits communication:

Interactivity

Today’s benefits communication and education involves more than just developing a message and delivering it. It’s about creating employee participation. Using tools such as workbooks and interactive needs analysis helps create true engagement and participation. 

One-to-one support

A one-size-fits-all approach to benefits communication no longer works. Insurance is complex, and relying on self-education or technology alone isn’t realistic. Having access to a trained benefits specialist who personalizes the decision-making experience for employees can create real satisfaction. Employees appreciate having someone help them understand all the terminology and choices, as well as give them the confidence they need to make good decisions for their families.

Convenience

Providing tools to give access to employees throughout the year, not just at annual enrollment, is important. The use of corporate portals, for example, has become increasingly popular, giving workers easy, 24/7 access to a wide range of web-based benefits information they can use year-round at their convenience. 

Multiple employee touch points

Give employees multiple options to enhance benefits communication. Some basic methods you should offer include one-to-one meetings, group meetings and Internet or self-enroll methods. Other ideas to supplement these methods are: online resources, printed benefits booklets, printed enrollment guides and interactive multimedia tools.

Year-round communication 

No one’s life is static, and benefits communication shouldn’t be either. Think about your new employees and employees who experience life changes throughout the year, such as marriage, retirement or the birth of a child. You need a way to keep up the communications efforts year-round.

With the right voluntary benefits partner and enrollment strategy, you can implement a strong benefits communication and education program that will help you realize competitive advantages.

Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company is a market leader in providing financial protection benefits through the workplace, including disability, life, accident, dental, cancer, critical illness and hospital confinement indemnity insurance. The company’s benefit services and education, innovative enrollment technology and personal service support more than 80,000 businesses and organizations, representing more than 3 million of America’s workers and their families. For more information

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Meanwhile, health care reform and changes in employer-paid benefits plans are leaving employees with more gaps in coverage than ever before. Insurance carriers are seeing an uptick in voluntary benefits products —life, disability, accident, dental, critical illness and cancer insurance—that help fill in gaps in this coverage.

It’s a great opportunity for you to showcase your experience and expertise with your clients, but only if you can communicate about the options effectively with them, and their employees. Here are five tips to remember so you can succeed with your clients this enrollment season.

Keep it simple

Efforts to keep costs down and under control have left business leaders across the country trying to do more with less. This includes human resource departments, where professionals are expected to manage benefits products constantly increasing in complexity in an ever-decreasing amount of time. You can help decision makers save time (and often money) by providing benefits that are guaranteed issue, include a minimal number of required forms and allow employees to customize their benefits.

 Employees need education

HR professionals who lack time and resources can easily leave a benefits education gap in the minds of the employees. While 81 percent of large companies think it’s important for employees to fully understand their benefits, estimates find that only 58 percent of employees understand their benefits well.1 Your role should be equal parts teacher and sales when you meet with business owners and decision makers.

 One size doesn’t fit anyone

America’s businesses now include as many as four generations, and that requires you to employ a variety of tools to communicate and educate. Employees can find most forms of enrollment support to be helpful, including personalized pre-enrollment information, one-to-one sessions, group meetings, online decision-making tools, and ongoing education after enrollment. You need to be able to communicate effectively about benefits with multiple generations over a variety of high-tech and high-touch platforms. Make sure your benefits provider can speak old-school and new-school.

3 weeks can change your life

Work with your clients to improve employee education by ensuring they have a variety of communications tools and enough time to review and understand them. The number of employers providing an enrollment period of at least three weeks declined from 2009 (55 percent of employers) to 2012 (47 percent). But the extra time can make a huge difference, according to the 2014 Colonial Life Employee Education and Enrollment survey.

It found employees were more satisfied with their benefits education and overall benefits package with more time. Only 7 percent of employees who were given less than two weeks to decide rated their benefits education as excellent or very good, and only 8 percent gave strong ratings to their benefits package. But giving employees three or more weeks raised those ratings to 57 percent for education and 53 percent for overall benefits.

 Make time for one-to-ones

While many of today’s younger workers want to be able to shop for and purchase products online, that doesn’t mean personal benefits communication doesn’t remain vital. According to a 2013 Colonial Life-Harris Poll, 98 percent of employees felt their personal counseling sessions were important. And 97 percent say it improved or significantly improved their understanding of their benefits.

Younger employees are more likely to prefer using electronic tools, according to the 2014 Colonial Life Employee Education and Enrollment survey, but they also lag behind older workers when it comes to understanding and valuing their benefits. That means you shouldn’t rely on technology to educate younger employees in the workplace. Perhaps adding a personal one-to-one component would be helpful.

By remembering these tips during this enrollment season, and taking advantage of the education and expertise you already have, you can enjoy a rewarding enrollment season.

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It’s all about delivering creative solutions and integrating them into your benefits programs so you and your employees both win. Whether you can no longer shoulder the premiums for employee health care coverage or have already shifted costs and are looking for a softer landing to protect employees from financial exposure, a voluntary hospital confinement indemnity plan can be the ideal solution.

Hospital confinement indemnity insurance provides a lump-sum benefit to help offset the costs that aren’t covered by most major medical plans. They can help cover costly co-pays, deductibles and other expenses that come your employees’ way. With the added financial protection, your employees may be eligible to receive help covering outpatient surgery, diagnostic tests, doctor appointments and emergency room visits.

The plans are available on a group or individual basis. And there are lots of ways to customize the coverage to meet the needs of employees.

Here are some key features and comparison points to keep in mind:

Exempt from health care reform

Most hospital confinement indemnity plans are exempt from the market requirements in health care reform legislation.

Flexible underwriting

These plans are often offered on a guaranteed-issue basis and waive pre-existing conditions when participation requirements are met.

Higher benefit levels

Look for benefit levels that stay in line with health care costs nationwide and with increasing deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses.

Employer- or employee-paid

You can pay all or part of the premiums or allow employees to pay them.

No lifetime maximum

There’s no lifetime limit on payments made to employees.

Benefits aren’t tied to major medical claims

Employees can use the plan’s benefits any way they choose, including nonmedical expenses such as day care, groceries and utility bills.

Benefits are paid regardless of other coverage employees may have

Voluntary plans pay in addition to existing coverage employees already own.

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