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Are Your Employees Actually Benefiting From Your Benefits Plan?

Every business leader shares a common, pressing concern: how to keep the cost of their employee benefit plans manageable, all the while being appealing enough to attract and retain talent.

With all of the effort and anxiety that comes with the benefits renewal process, can you honestly say at the end of the day that your employees feel that these benefits are actually benefiting their needs?

Let’s face it—health insurance is expensive, but that doesn’t mean you can’t design a comprehensive benefits package that will have an impact to your employees. Applying a fresh thinking approach to the design of your package is likely to have a strong impact on employees.

Depending on the dynamics within your organization, simple communication enhancements to communicate your existing plan may be the boost you need. Have you considered peppering your break room with quick-hit videos to articulate the value of your plan? Or implementing an electronic enrollment app that can be navigated by a smart phone? What about lunch and learns so they can understand the perks of your plans? Too often insured’s don’t realize their plan may have built-in benefits such as fitness reimbursements, discounts for eye wear, will preparation services, etc.

You may also realize that your benefits have been on a 'set it and forget it' path resulting in your organization being entirely out of touch with your employees. A couple suggestions to get back on track:

  • Run a simple demographic analysis of your employees to see what generational categories your employees gravitate to. A large millennial population will have a different perception and expectation of what types of benefits will be of value to them than a baby boomer population.
  • Have you considered asking employees what they value by conducting a simple employee survey using on online survey tool? The responses may surprise you, and surely give you a starting point in understanding their needs.

Change the paradigm and don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo. Benefits such a student loan payment assistance, pet insurance, and identity theft protection are just a few examples of low cost, high impact benefits that may help you lead the pack in the recruiting and retention game.

Smaller market employers have a host of new funding concepts with the aim at lower premium costs and/or improving your benefits design. Bringing creativity to the renewal conversation should be the expectation—not the exception of the value proposition provided to you by your broker or advisor.

Go ahead, think differently. Get in the mindset of your employee population and be relentless in your pursuit to provide differentiating benefits that set you apart from your competition. If you aren’t confident your broker or advisor is thinking outside the box, reach out to OneDigital so we can share our our fresh thinking perspective with you.

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