Three Keys to a Successful Open Enrollment

What does Open Enrollment look like for a company who administers benefits for other employers?  What are the secrets to success?  *Hint:  there’s never a replacement for hard work.*  But, there are ways that you can work more efficiently.  As we enter another Open Enrollment period, P&A’s team focuses on an approach that helps engage employees through their screens.  Here are three key takeaways for delivering a successful Open Enrollment.

1. Plan – chart your course! What are you going to do and how?

P&A previously surveyed employees to better understand their communication preferences and insights into our company ecosystem.  “How can we communicate better?” “How do you prefer to receive communication?”  These types of questions are important to ask because if you don’t, you’re left assuming what your employees need and want.  When you invite feedback, you bring employees into the conversation and make their voices feel heard.  Our team took the survey responses and used the data from employees to create a plan of what Open Enrollment would look like this year.

2. Use different mediums – variety is the spice of life!

Because most of our workforce is working remotely, we understand that keeping employees engaged is critical to a successful Open Enrollment.  And, employees have different communication styles, so relaying information in different ways keeps a larger audience engaged.  Overall, we committed to a variety of methods to communicate benefits:  virtual presentations, a comprehensive benefits guide, e-mails and IM reminders.  Our HR team also made themselves easily accessible for any questions.  Using a combination of delivery channels allows employees to attain the information that works best for them.

3. Get creative – as circumstances change, so should we.

With many employers offering remote or hybrid work options, we can lose the happenstance conversations that take place in the break room and hallways.  While it can be difficult to re-create an environment for organic conversations to happen, it’s not impossible – you just need to create space for those types of conversations online.  Planning ahead is a huge factor too. For instance, one year we experienced significant carrier changes, so we decided to hold a series of virtual Open Enrollment meetings.  Careful planning ahead of time allowed us to block out different days and times to hold the meetings so we could accommodate schedules and maximize attendance.  During the meetings, employees were invited to ask P&A’s internal benefits team questions.  We also had a team monitoring questions sent through web chat during the presentations.  Employees could also ask questions anonymously if they preferred, further encouraging communication across different communication styles.  Overall, the week-long virtual Open Enrollment was a success!

Being adaptable to your workforce is key, especially as the workplace landscape continues to change for many employers.

Deliver a successful Open Enrollment to your employees

Are you looking to enhance your benefits communication?  Do you need ideas on how to roll out Open Enrollment to your employees?  P&A’s Benefits Consultants are available to help you, whether you need to brainstorm solutions, problem solve, or simply want help communicating a benefit plan to employees.  Reach out to a consultant today for help creating a successful Open Enrollment.