How Well Do Your Employees Understand Their Benefits?
Author
Grant Ameel | COBRA & FMLA Expert
Evaluation and Communication

One of the biggest benefits challenges employers face isn’t necessarily choosing their benefit help solutions package, but communicating those benefits to their employees.
Know Your Employees To Create a Campaign That Works

“What’s the point of having and paying for something if you don’t know how to use it?”
If a company were to ask their employees if they knew what their copays, co-insurance and deductibles were and what that meant, they’d probably be hard-pressed to get accurate and knowledgeable responses. What about how their 401k works, and what their employer match is and what that means? Even things that aren’t benefits, such as COBRA and FMLA, are not that well known by your typical employee. Which is exactly why a lot of employers have been searching for inclusive ways to provide labor law and benefit help solutions to their workforce. After all, considering the immense amount of time and resources HR departments and benefits brokers put into designing health and welfare programs and investing in benefit administration software for employees, it can appear fruitless if those programs aren’t understood and taken advantage of.
So what can an employer do to break through the treacherous benefits barrier that has become commonplace? For starters, it’s important that a comprehensive employee education and communication campaign is put into place. Employers need to devise a way to communicate benefit help solutions that go beyond just handing out plan summary packets during open enrollment and hoping their employees A.) read them and B.) understand what they are reading. A good tactic is to utilize real life, relatable scenarios to paint a description of how their benefits plan would be applied in a similar situation. As with most consumers, employees need to be able to quantify the true cost and value of their benefits, and using real life situations to help explain things such as deductibles, co-pays, and flex spending accounts can go a long way in helping employees truly understand how their plans work in a relatable sense.
Develop a Great Communication Strategy.

Of course, having said that, it’s important to remember that a strong comprehensive engagement strategy must account for the multiple generations, cultures, and socio-economical differences within the company’s workforce as well. While electronic modes can be a highly effective source and are the assured way of the future, they shouldn’t be the sole vessel for communicating benefits. Personal interaction, discussion, and an open dialog where feedback and questions are encouraged is still an essential component to any successful campaign. Even postcards and wallet sized benefit “Cheat Sheets” can be an effective tool to reach audiences that are less averse to electronic methods and benefit administration software, yet still provide benefit help solutions to those who need them.
The bottom line is that when it comes to benefits communication, targeting your audience is key. What companies need to be weary of is trying to communicate the “white noise” of their benefits package. For example, placing an emphasis on how a plan will cover a colonoscopy or a mammogram might be important to a small section of your workforce, but it’s not all encompassing, and with something so specific, those who want to know that info will usually make the effort to obtain it. That’s why a great benefits campaign is a customized benefits campaign.
“Companies differ in size, culture, diversity and pay grade. Targeting your audience is key when it comes to educating your staff about their benefits, resulting in better engagement.”
Companies differ in size, culture, diversity, and pay grade. HR departments need to adopt a salesman mentality and not think of their coworkers as just that, but rather as consumers. What’s the best way to reach them with benefit help solutions? What is essential that they know and what isn’t? Considering the demographic, what is the best strategy to communicate with them? With an ever-changing workforce and an ever-changing benefits landscape, it’s imperative to design new, creative, and diverse educational campaigns, because what’s the point of having and paying for something if you don’t know how to use it?