As an employer, you work hard to offer compelling benefits like Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that help your employees save money to be used for maintaining and improving their health.
But if your employees don’t know about your offerings, they won’t enroll. Likewise, if your benefits participants don't know how to use their benefits—or forget about them entirely—their benefits engagement slips, and they become less likely to enroll again the following year. According to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, half of benefits participants don’t understand their benefits, and 80% never read benefits communications materials.
Clear, accessible, and consistent benefits education is key to increasing benefits awareness and mitigating employee confusion about their benefits options. Read on for four ways you can improve your benefits communication strategy to drive long-term benefits engagement.
1. Simplify your benefits messaging
Benefits plans full of complex HR jargon can confuse and overwhelm your employee. Simplifying and lightening the language used in your benefits communications helps participants and prospects alike to better understand their options so they can make more informed enrollment and usage decisions.
Avoid unnecessary acronyms and technical terms that the average employee won’t understand—and be sure to explicitly define any industry-specific terms you absolutely have to use. In all your communications materials, include a basic primer on benefits-specific rules like HSA eligibility rules and contribution limits.
Another great way to drive benefits engagement is by using real-world examples of qualifying expenses like doctor and prescription fees as well as seasonal expenses. In the summer, you could point out your benefits options that cover testing for summer allergies and skin care solutions; employees who are parents would want to know about benefits that cover daycare providers as well as back-to-school expenses like vaccinations and physical exams. Then, when flu season comes around, you could highlight benefits that cover flu shots.
2. Expand your benefits communication output
Without easy-to-access benefits education resources, employees are more likely to misunderstand options available to them and those they’re actively enrolled in.
Distributing up-to-date information about your benefits year-round—before, during, and after open enrollment—drives benefits awareness, engagement, and long-term participation. You can increase the likelihood of employees reading your benefits outreach by messaging it in as many locations as possible—like emails, staff meetings, and company communications platforms like Slack.
3. Incentivize benefits engagement
Employees are more likely to enroll in and use their benefits when offered incentives for doing so. Leverage strategic incentives that make benefits engagement more enticing for employees such as:
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Personalized benefits counseling to help employees more closely understand their options
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Online tools that make it easy for employees to access benefits wherever they are
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Premium discounts for completing benefits-related activities like attending a benefits education lunch-and-learn session
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Health fairs that offer employees free health checks and provide benefits information and enrollment opportunities
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Rewards like pizza parties or half days for winning benefits-relevant contests, such as which department achieves the most enrollments
4. Improve convenience benefits education
When employees can access benefits education resources anytime and anywhere, they’re more encouraged to learn about your benefits options and use the benefits they’re already enrolled in.
By offering your employees an online portal or mobile app that includes on-demand benefits education resources, you make benefits information more accessible and eliminate benefits engagement roadblocks. And by embracing digital communication solutions, with 24/7 real-time availability, your employees have the tools for both physical and financial wellness, while your organization gains in productivity and employee retention.
Offer employees compelling benefit accounts with First American Bank Health Account Services
If balancing year-round benefits administration for your employees challenges your in-house team, now is the time to take steps to reduce their workload.
First American Bank Health Account Services offers employers and their employees a variety of consumer-directed health benefit products—including one of the best HSA accounts for 2023, as recognized by Investor’s Business Daily. Partnering with First American Bank lets you offer your employees health benefit accounts with the highest quality terms while freeing you to focus on strategic benefits communications that reminds employees why your company is a great place to work.
Learn more about our health benefit offerings by reaching our Health Account Services team at (847) 586-2239 or emailing [email protected].
