Making Benefits Understandable
(This is an anonymous post from an HR practitioner)
With open enrollment upon us again, I find that it's hard to break down some of the benefit terminology into something my employees understand. I tend to use too many HR words, and it feel like I'm just leaving people confused.
Does anyone have a way to make benefits easier to understand? I'd love to hear your ideas.
Thanks.
8 replies
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From a terminology standpoint, I have successfully used a glossary to define exactly what each term means.
As for the concepts, I have been using Jelly Vision to help educate employees about benefits, and it has been really well received. If you have questions, feel free to contact me. Ted Zalla - 513-703-8837 or Ted.Zalla@usi.com
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I think new approaches, including using humor, can drive engagement, understanding, utilization, and appreciation (retention) of a company's entire benefits program. I have developed a series of informative, humorous, and customizable videos that can be used throughout the year to help HR teams communicate their important employee benefits information and programs. Here's a telemedicine example:
https://vimeo.com/daveflemingspeaks/phonedoctors
Feel free to call or email me with any questions or communications challenges you are facing. Dave Fleming: 214-718-3121 or dave@daveflemingspeaks.com
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We use Jellyvision too. ALEX is perceived very well in our company!
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Jarlyn Gonzalez We use jellyvision too. Alex is great. A focus group of employees may also be helpful too.
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Similar to Jellyvision, Guidespark videos make benefits communication simple and easy to understand. What's also nice about both of these types of resources is that they are available 24/7 and can be shared with family members. However, I think that they can be expensive from a mid to small employer perspective.
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We're about 500 people and what I found successful in our last open enrollment was building a focus group with non-HR folks to have them read through it. We had five people from customer service backgrounds read through it for ease of understanding, clarity and even to make sure they didn't have more info they wanted. We posted it as an internal opportunity for people to volunteer for and we had a HUGE level of interest. We had the least amount of questions during the process that I'd ever seen.
We also did a Choose Your Own Adventure guide for the open enrollment process because our employees have to go between two different systems during the process. We made it pretty fun. If people made the wrong choice (like not acknowledging a particular form that's required), they got eaten by a bear.
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Wendy Berry - I'd love to hear more about the CYOA concept. Could we connect?
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Chadwick Klein Absolutely! Feel free to send me an email: wendyberry23@gmail.com.