With students heading back to school and
Open enrollment is an excellent opportunity to help employees plug into the valuable support available through your financial benefits programs, but it's essential to strike the right balance of benefits communication, education, and offerings to help get the right information to the right people at the right time. Mastering this recipe is an ongoing challenge — in fact, 85% of employees believe their company needs to do a better job explaining how to maximize the
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Here are 3 ideas to help kickstart your back-to-school and open enrollment seasons with reenergized employee engagement:
1. Tailor your benefits education program to be inclusive of all employees
The workplace is a primary resource many employees turn to for help reaching financial goals, but they may need help connecting the dots between your benefits offering and their financial obligations — whether that includes caretaking, repaying debt, saving for college or more. Our research shows that while 94% of employers offer workplace financial benefits like a 401(k), 32% of employees have never thought to reach out if they need help.
For the first time in history, the workforce consists of five generations — which means varying preferences on money management, lifestyle and long-term goals. For example, while older generations may be focused on retirement, millennials may be saving up to buy a home and Gen Z may prioritize student loan repayments. Additionally, roughly 11 million employees are part of the sandwich generation of adults supporting aging parents and growing children simultaneously — which DuPage Senior Citizens Council data shows is on track to become the fastest-growing employee segment by 2025. And on top of this, our research shows that the majority of employees are also saving for retirement in the long-term (78%).
Our research shows that more than 4 in 5 employees would like their employer to provide support through specific financial troubles, while flagging budgeting (37%), retirement planning (35%), and debt reduction (31%) as top financial issues they've dealt with in the past year. With such a diverse set of employee needs, it's crucial to have both an effective offering and an engaging education program around it to help employees understand how their workplace benefits can help them address various financial challenges.
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2. Gather feedback throughout the year and stay nimble
Even if your benefits offering doesn't change very much year to year, it's important to continually enhance your benefits communications and education content as business objectives and employee needs evolve. As a first step, invite employee feedback on their benefits enrollment experience while it's fresh in their minds – focusing on what worked well and what didn't. Then, continue to check in about their ongoing user experience and sentiment throughout the year.
Employee feedback can help you identify gaps in your coverage, engagement trends, technological issues, or opportunities to better support company goals. Create a safe space where employees can ask questions and share their opinions. For example, our research shows that 61% of U.S. stock plan participants say they do not understand how to maximize the financial benefit from their stock plan and say they would be likely to attend sessions on the topics of equity fundamentals (69%), retirement (67%), and advanced investing (64%).
There is a delicate balance between informing employees and overwhelming them with content, but work to understand where that line is, and utilize various channels such as SMS text, chats, webinars, conference calls, and virtual meetings. Create a library of educational content such as articles, on-demand videos, and virtual classes on your employee intranet, so that employees can reference what is most relevant to them.
By diversifying your communication strategy, you're likely to connect with each generation more easily. For example, baby boomers prefer to learn about benefits through in-person conversations, while Gen X employees look to online resources. Millennial employees prefer video and podcast content, and Gen Z employees like social media, according to research from MetLife.
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3. Offer ongoing support
To lighten the load for your employees (and make it easier for them to engage), look for opportunities to provide support for a range of financial needs. For example, our research shows that nearly 9 in 10 HR leaders offer financial wellness programs to help counterbalance work-life stressors. Additionally, flexible work arrangements for caretakers may help relieve gaps in child care, and offering student loan repayment or return-to-work programs can help support education needs. Meanwhile, retirement benefits like a 401(k) employer match can help employees reach their long-term retirement goals.
For more complex financial support, consider connecting your employees to personal financial coaching or a financial advisor — our research shows that employees consider access to a financial advisor to be the most helpful benefit for retirement planning assistance. This is a powerful way to help employees better navigate both their benefits and their wider financial lives.
At the end of the day, back-to-school season is a reminder that learning doesn't stop after college: Ensuring your company's financial benefits and related educational programs are inclusive for all employees can help drive a more engaged and financially savvy workforce.
