Creating a comprehensive benefits package that your employees will love is a significant investment. When your people don't fully understand what's included in your benefits plan, you are missing an opportunity to demonstrate a key piece of your employee value proposition. Here's how to ensure your team knows what benefits are available to them and how to maximize them in a way that enriches their lives!
1. Offer Benefits Breakdown Sessions: Education Leads to Empowerment and Appreciation
Employees often overlook or underutilize benefits simply because they don't know about them or fully understand them. Combat this by organizing Benefits Breakdown Sessions - these can be regular, informal meetings where you discuss each component of your benefits package in a way that focusses on what your team stands to gain when they use them.
- Try Scenario Simulations: Use real-life scenarios to demonstrate the impact of health insurance coverage. For example, walk teams through what happens in the case of a medical emergency, showing how their coverage steps in and the costs it mitigates. (Bonus points for deploying some of your entertainment budgets to deliver these lessons in the form of ‘edutainment’ that your talent base is more likely to remember.)
- Try Retirement Planning Workshops: Bring in financial experts to talk about the future. Workshops can help employees plan their retirement by understanding how their contributions, especially in employer-matched plans, can compound over time, leading to significant savings.
- Provide Feedback Loops: After highlighting perks like flexible working arrangements, solicit feedback. What do employees find most valuable? What needs tweaking? This dialogue ensures that benefits evolve in tune with your team’s needs.
2. Consider an Interactive Benefits Portal for Personalized Value Delivery to your People
An interactive portal can serve as a 24/7 resource for employees to explore their benefits. For a portal to be truly effective, and to get used by your people, it needs to be a tool that is interactive. Here are some ideas:
- Customizable Calculators: Implement calculators for retirement contributions to allow employees to model different financial scenarios and see the potential benefits or downsides of their choices. (Remember: Many savings plan providers offer these tools, so you don’t have to build them yourself. If this is of value, make it a factor in your selection of a benefits partner.)
- Engagement Dashboards: Provide statistics on whether members are connecting to their account, how recently they signed in, or how many registered for access. On the member front, dashboards for each individual plan member to show "used versus available" in real time for benefits that include their annual maximum, by family member. This transparency can encourage more widespread use of underutilized benefits.
- Rewards for Engagement: Introduce a system where employees earn points for interacting with the portal, attending sessions, or providing feedback. These gamified points could translate into additional perks, underscoring the rich value to be gained in their own lives by leveraging what is already available to them.
It’s often helpful to remember that you're not just offering benefits; you're helping support the wellbeing of your people and their families. Create awareness of this through experiences and an education that underline the tangible and intangible value of what your employees receive. In the medium to long term, this will lead to increased employee satisfaction, loyalty, and a strong workplace culture where employees are more likely to stay.
Ready to unlock the true potential of your benefits package for your teams? Dive into the wealth of resources we've curated for you as a benefits provider. Get in touch with us through the contact page of our website and let's make your benefits package a highlight of your employee experience.
