How to Help Get More Engagement from Employees During Open Enrollment

The annual window for managing employee open enrollment periods is important to get right. This lets employees modify their health insurance coverage plans without needing to qualify for certain life events.

Unfortunately, though, many businesses find that this time of year can often introduce a certain amount of confusion. HR teams are not only responsible for handling their regular tasks, but then they need to ensure all employees have the information and support they need to finalize their open enrollment submissions and meet certain filing deadlines.

To ensure your business has a smoother enrollment process, keeping employees actively engaged with the right information and resources to simplify their benefits coverage choices is important. This minimizes submission errors and helps HR teams carry out all necessary protocols with plenty of time to spare.

The Importance of Planning Ahead

One of the best ways to get more engagement from employees during open enrollment periods and limit any confusion is to prepare well in advance before windows open up. This helps to take a lot of pressure off of HR teams and employees while making sure everyone has plenty of time to handle their tasks.

Part of your planning process should be to lay out an effective communication plan with your employees. You could schedule regular times throughout the year that remind employees how many days or months they have before open enrollment opens. You could do this with regular email reminders, mention the dates during team meetings, or make an announcement on your business’s preferred communication platform.

Another strategy you could use is working with your benefits broker to set up an online webinar explaining to employees the different plan or coverage options they have and how they’re structured. This is a great opportunity to not only help them better understand how their plans work, but also give them an opportunity to ask questions that will help them make better decisions during open enrollment periods.

Educating Employees on Their Options

One of the easiest ways to streamline your open enrollment is to make your benefits offerings easier to understand. Adjusting how you communicate with your employees and educating them about their benefits will make a big difference as open enrollment periods get started.

The primary goal here is twofold. First off, it’s important that your employees recognize the value that their benefits offer to them. This not only helps them to better appreciate the effort the business has made when providing options outside of legally required benefits coverage minimums, but it also makes sure employees maximize their use.

Secondly, the more an employee understands all their benefits and how they’re structured, the easier it is for them to plan throughout the year what kind of changes they may want as open enrollment periods start.

A big part of this education is simplifying how information is delivered. Businesses should make an effort to remove as much technical jargon as possible when communicating benefits and offerings and try to break everything down into easy-to-understand terms.

Another option is to utilize benefits call centers. This gives employees a direct line to trained benefits specialists who can answer unique questions regarding coverage options and empower your employees to make smarter decisions with their plan options.

Providing Necessary Resources and Support

During open enrollment periods, it’s important to remember that not all employees have the same level of experience navigating benefits packages. Because of this, certain individuals may need more assistance or resources than others when choosing the best plan options that are right for them.

To help everyone feel more confident in the choices they make, having a place they can go to get details about their coverage is important. If you take the time now to create additional educational resources, then employees can access and rely on them whenever they need.

For example, one way you can help employees avoid confusion when submitting their open enrollment forms is by providing them with premium calculators or coverage cost estimation tools. These types of tools make it much easier for an employee to understand how their choices now might impact their savings or out-of-pocket expenses as they submit benefits claims throughout the year.

Another helpful strategy is to provide employees with summarized benefit plans. Instead of giving them a long list of documentation to go through, provide them with a comparison table of the benefits and options they have. Giving them an easy-to-understand breakdown of each plan along with different deductible or copay amounts can take a lot of guesswork out of the process and help your employees submit their forms much faster.

Making Open Enrollment Engaging and Fun

The amount of engagement your employees have during open enrollment periods is what will make all the difference when meeting your important reporting requirements. However, to achieve this, you may want to consider getting more creative when keeping your employees on task.

One way to do this is by incorporating certain elements of fun during the process. This could be by running individual or departmental contests on who can be the first ones to submit their forms.

You could also start this process well in advance of open enrollment timeframes by having fun quizzes throughout the year, themed around your benefits offerings. This can be a more fun and engaging way to educate your employees about each of their benefit options, which will come in handy when they need to make open enrollment decisions later on in the year.

Streamlining the Open Enrollment Process

Keeping your business prepared for open enrollment periods requires careful planning throughout the year as well as regular employee benefits education. By providing your employees with the information and resources they need to make smarter benefits decisions, you’ll ensure they stay fully engaged during open enrollment, helping your HR teams to streamline their required processes.

Frank Mengert

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, 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.