When employees can easily access, understand and
A large contributor to improving these factors is the shift by
"[When it is a] fully digital experience [and] mobile-friendly and laden with lots of education so employees understand their options, there's a direct correlation to more usage and adoption," says Megan Wood, the president of Genius Avenue, an end-to-end tech platform for supplemental insurance and benefits carriers that manages the initial employee enrollment setup, then the entire user experience, plus any communication, payments, compliance and security details aspect. "It's not just about signing up for [a benefit]. We want them to love it so that they sign up for it again next year, and they tell their friends about it, and then [a benefit] moves organically through the company."
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When employers offer solutions like this that foster participation all year round, they remove some heavy lifting from the shoulders of HR, which otherwise conducts the majority of communication on benefit details. This can be especially difficult during open enrollment when supplemental benefits may not get as much attention and employees can miss the opportunity to add them on.
"We should be enrolling [supplemental benefits] all year long," says Wood. "Part of it is divorcing the supplemental benefits from the major medical benefit in that [open enrollment] timeline, and the other part of it is ongoing communication about the benefit — the reminders that when things seasonally come up, when benefits need to be used before a period or you lose them. It's easy for our clients, who are the carriers, to remind their users, who are the employees, 'Don't forget about this,' or 'Did you know about this?'"
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Another optimization component of these platforms is their use of analytics — the ability to prompt employees based on their life stage, or a major moment that requires a reevaluation of benefit choices, such as marriage, having a baby, or getting a divorce. When an employee becomes a parent, for example, Genius Avenue can send them additional benefits to consider, such as child care or college savings plans. The platform also has a peer evaluations section, so employees can look at others' personal experience with available offerings.
"It's the small little influences [about a benefit] that go throughout the year [that] really matter," Wood explains. "The generation of employees is changing — how they prefer to be communicated with and how they prefer those influences. "You're not selling, you're evangelizing and you're educating."
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Wood notes that, because HR provides a vital human role in the benefits process, the right technology is customizable and should be viewed as a way to improve the experience of both benefits professionals and the employees they serve.
"It's about trying to provide as much self service to the employee, so the HR doesn't have a line out their door, and it's also about educating HR so they can receive questions and be educated to answer them," she says.
As the employee demand for a broader range of supplemental benefits grows, finding smart ways to manage and communicate about them is table stakes. This ability to do well in these areas will serve employers not only from a benefits engagement standpoint and a reduced HR workload, but improved recruitment and retention as well.
"Cohesive and streamlined is what we all want — that is the Holy Grail," says Wood.
