The primary goal of an employee benefits marketing plan should be to streamline the enrollment process. It should also make enrolling in benefits easier for everyone involved. Human Resource Professionals and Benefits Administrators play a large part in how effective the process is. They also play a key role in driving benefits enrollments. Including a tool like Benefits Zone in a benefits marketing plan can help. There are several steps HR professionals can take to ensure that employees have a positive enrollment experience.
Steps to Driving Benefits Enrollment
Step 1 – Use Technology to Drive Enrollments
Virtual engagement tools like Benefits Zone can help bridge the communication gap. But they can’t do that if employees don’t have access to the solution. So be sure to promote and share on digital platforms. With Benefits Zone, you can do this by including keyword information in:
- Enrollment emails/communication
- Email signature lines
- Internal HR/benefits resources
- Company intranet pages, posts, or updates
- Company onboarding material
- Benefits conference calls or webinars
- Company meetings or video conferences
Step 2 – Connect the App to Important Tools
Build your employee benefits marketing plan around existing tools. Review internal systems that are frequently used by employees and identify ways to connect those tools to a virtual engagement solution. Integrating existing tools, systems, or calendars into a benefits app is key. Including existing enrollment content helps create a hub for employees to find the answer to a vast majority of their questions. Centralizing these tools and content allows employees to take care of everything they need to do without leaving the app. Making benefits easy to access is key to driving benefits enrollment.
Step 3 – Create Buy-In and Reinforce the Tool
Make sure managers and supervisors know about and feel comfortable with the new benefits tool. Consider holding training sessions that are exclusively for the management team prior to launching a virtual engagement tool to the entire company. It’s critical that managers and supervisors can use the tool to help answer direct reports’ questions.
Any digital benefits tool should be able to answer nearly all benefits-related questions; however, internal team members will likely still receive questions. When responding to questions from employees, be sure to direct them back to the app. Show them where the answer is so they can pass that information along or refer to the app the next time a question comes up.
Step 4 – Stay Engaged with Enrolled Employees
Finally, be sure to stay engaged with employees. The primary benefit of including a virtual engagement tool as a piece of your employee benefits marketing plan is that enrolled employees can use it as a resource throughout the year – not just during the enrollment period.
The tool should give employees a single place to access forms, resources, contact information, and the claims process. Additionally, it should provide insight into how employees are engaging with the tool. Benefits Zone also equips companies to communicate with enrolled employees via bulk text messaging. Companies can coordinate with Benefits Zone to use this not only for benefits-related communication but general company updates as well.
Want to learn more about a virtual engagement solution for your Open Enrollment? Schedule some time with us today!
