Creating a Post-Benefits Open Enrollment Survey

After a hectic open enrollment season, benefits professionals can shift their focus to creating an open enrollment aftermath strategy. Gaining insights into what was successful and areas for improvement can set you up for a smoother and more effective process next year. After all, benefits like HSAs and FSAs help employees pay for qualified medical expenses, which can boost workplace engagement. But that’s only when your employees sign up.

Surveys are a great way to collect the data you’ll need to analyze. Feedback from employees, internal stakeholders, benefits brokers, and technology partners can help you find gaps and strengthen overall communication and enrollment strategies.
  
Rather than create multiple surveys at once, which can seem quite daunting, it’s best to start with your highest priority group: your employees. The very people who must participate in enrollment with their selections can provide the feedback you need to understand enrollment pain points and what your employees are looking for from their benefits package. Armed with this valuable insight, you can craft actionable steps to improve the employee enrollment experience and drive sign-ups.

The when and where of surveying
 
It’s best to conduct the survey immediately after enrollment season ends since that’s when their experience is freshest in their minds. If you can’t survey promptly, a late survey is always better than no survey. Digital options offer convenience, so offer your employees an online survey. Free online survey tools make it easy to build and distribute your digital survey, capture, store, and tabulate employee answers. Be sure to choose a tool that offers mobile-friendly access and provides robust data reporting and analysis capabilities.
  
Once your survey is online, send the survey link to your employees in secure, direct channels like email inboxes and workplace collaboration software like Slack. For employees who can’t easily access a computer during the workday, consider sending both an online and printed survey to ensure participation. Moreover, consider delivering your survey to your employees and their dependents. Some employees may hand off the benefits-related tasks to a spouse or family member. You’ll want the actual end-user's feedback. 

Ask employee-centric questions

The survey should further the goals of your benefits team and your business. Craft questions tailored to your employees’ needs to get the insights you need most. Your survey should be your five most relevant questions, so you get actionable next steps without overwhelming respondents.
 
Consider these five open enrollment questions uncover meaningful data:

1. How would you rate your overall benefits enrollment experience?
Use a four- or five-point Likert scale format (excellent, good, neutral, fair, poor) to measure employee experience in a consistent format. 

2. How satisfied were you with your offered benefits package? 
A Likert scale format is also helpful with this question to measure employee sentiment in a consistent data format. 

3. Did you have all the resources necessary to make an informed benefits decision? 
Use yes/no checkboxes. For employees who choose "no," you can learn more by asking an open-ended follow-up question, such as "Did you know who to contact for further help and guidance?".
 
4. Was your enrollment experience simple and tailored to your needs/experience? 
Yes/no checkboxes will draw general conclusions about employee sentiment.
  
5. How could open enrollment be improved? 
Make this a required, open-ended question that empowers employees to share opinions and ideas you might not have considered. You can then group this question’s responses into categories for future analysis. In-person focus groups centered around important, recurring themes from the survey can provide more in-depth data.  

Use employee feedback to inform next year’s process

Survey feedback isn’t helpful if you don’t do anything with it. So, before you develop next year’s benefits campaigns and communication strategies, spend time reading and digesting your newly acquired feedback. That way, you’re better equipped to educate your employees on the value of your benefits offerings leading up to and during open enrollment season. 

First American Bank can help
 
Understanding where your employees are today prepares them and your organization to thrive as you move forward together. First American Bank is a financial institution known for building relationships with business leaders and their employees alike. We can empower your employees to save and pay for qualified medical expenses with options including FSAs, HRAs, QTAs. We offer one of the best 2023 HSA offerings, according to Investor’s Business Daily. Our experts can also educate your employees on ways to plan for retirement and effective strategies for their long-term investments.