- Tips for Educating your Employees on Benefits. Offering Employee Group Benefits is one of the most important things you can do to attract and retain great staff.
- Designate a Group Benefits Champion. In large companies, there is usually an HR person or department that will be your company’s go-to for group benefits training, resources, and questions.
- Educating employees on benefits face-to-face. For many companies, educating employees on benefits involves handing them an employee handbook when they’re first hired and hoping for the best.
- Train your Managers. Your managers are usually the first to know about the health and life challenges that could be affecting your employees’ work.
- Leverage Health Awareness Days. Many national and international health organizations have designated days to raise awareness about a variety of health and wellness issues.
- Take advantage of educational resources from your Benefits Provider. Most Benefits Providers have insightful blogs and educational resources that can help your employees solve problems, learn health and wellness skills, ...
- Use your company’s existing communication resources & a marketing mindset. What tools does your company use to communicate, share information, and celebrate your achievements?
- Keep a list of FAQs. Chances are, your benefits champion gets a lot of similar questions over and over. ...
- Communicate with Employees to Help Them Understand Benefit Offerings. ...
- Make plans customizable to meet individual needs. ...
- Explore options to offer more voluntary benefits for financial security. ...
- Talk about benefits outside of open enrollment. ...
- Make it easy to sign up.
How to educate employees about benefits?
What are non-wage benefits?
How can employee awareness of benefits be improved?
Set Up Dedicated Communication Channels. ... Track Awareness And Utilization. ... Provide Pulse Checks Throughout The Year. ... Ensure Management Uses The Benefits. ... Leverage Employee Word-Of-Mouth. ... Review Usage Data From Benefits Providers. ... Hire A Human Capital Management Leader. ... Explain The Benefits To Each New Hire.More items...•
How do you explain benefits to employees?
To streamline your message:Avoid noninformation that's factually accurate but of little value to someone who isn't a benefits wonk.Appeal to employees' logic ("Here's what is changing for you") and their emotions ("Here's how it will benefit you").More items...•
How do you promote employee benefits?
10 Critical Things You Must Do When Marketing Employee BenefitsCreate Marketing Materials That Speak to the Needs of Employees. ... Develop Marketing That Covers All Media Formats. ... Convey Positive Messaging Around Benefit Use. ... Share Employee Success Stories as Part of Marketing Campaigns.More items...•
How do you educate employees?
8 Effective Ways to Educate Employees On Workplace DiversityWorkplace diversity begins the top. ... Create diverse teams. ... Make learning engaging. ... Rely on experts in workplace diversity. ... Ask for anonymous feedback. ... Check bias during the interview. ... Diversity and inclusion as a company's value.More items...•
What are the 4 major types of employee benefits?
There are four major types of employee benefits many employers offer: medical insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and retirement plans. Below, we've loosely categorized these types of employee benefits and given a basic definition of each.
How can I promote my employees?
Here are some steps for how to promote employees:Evaluate your current staff. ... Determine your promotion method. ... Establish the requirements for promotion. ... Announce the promotion opportunity. ... Evaluate and interview candidates. ... Make and announce your decision.
How do you educate people on diversity and inclusion?
Be Proactive. ... Start At The Leadership Level. ... Encourage Dialogue All Year Long. ... Develop Diverse Teams. ... Reinforce Values Daily. ... Create A Culture Of Inclusion. ... Evaluate Bias Before Employment. ... Communicate The Value Of Every Employee.More items...•
How do you educate a coworker?
How to Train ColleaguesLearn Their Background. Find out the training, certification, education and experience your colleague has before your training session. ... State the Objective. ... Show the Finished Product First. ... Organize Your Steps. ... Use the Socratic Method. ... Have Them Repeat Your Information. ... Finish With a Q&A.
How do you teach diversity and inclusion in the workplace?
Ways to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplaceBe aware of unconscious bias. ... Communicate the importance of managing bias. ... Promote pay equity. ... Develop a strategic training program. ... Acknowledge holidays of all cultures. ... Make it easy for your people to participate in employee resource groups. ... Mix up your teams.More items...•
Why invest in HR technology?
Investing in updated HR and benefits technology will not only save your department valuable time and greatly improve efficiencies across the board, but also open the doors to useful communication and education opportunities.
Do your employees have a central place to access all of their benefits materials?
Do your employees have a central place to access all of their benefits materials? Hosting a benefits-specific website is an affordable and effective way to provide on-demand access to important materials. This is also a great place to host your educational materials, like benefits guides and educational videos. Make sure that your benefits website is mobile-friendly and can easily be accessed and navigated across multiple device types.
How to take advantage of benefits?
To take advantage of benefits, employees need to understand what options are available, what’s covered and what steps they need to take. It seems the main barrier here is lack of awareness and education.
Should you talk about benefits during open enrollment?
Talking about benefits only during open enrollment is not enough. Communicate to employees about benefits in a way that reflects seasons and life events throughout the year. For example, for those employees planning to start a family, have information already prepared regarding doctor visits and childcare.
Is the employee benefits landscape challenging?
The current employee benefits landscape is a challenging one for employers. In fact, it is becoming an administrative nightmare with all the new regulations, taxes, penalties, and countless hours of paperwork. Employers are looking to benefits as a new way to attract and retain great employees, and how best to communicate ...
Can you get benefits from open enrollment?
Open enrollment can be a overwhelming time for both HR and employees. If employees have to wait too long, don’t receive the information they need, or feel the sign-up process is too complicated , they may obtain benefits elsewhere — either as a dependant or by taking out their own personal plan.
Rejecting the norm
Many standards that would be considered outrageous in other industries are perfectly acceptable in the health care industry. For example, not only are annual increases of up to 5 percent considered “good” when applied to benefits, but employers also place their employees in charge of much of that spending.
Empowerment through education
Many employees want to know more about how to make their plan do more for them, but don’t know where to start. One of my favorite anecdotes from my time as a broker was when an employee asked me, “Can I insure my husband and my boyfriend?” I laughed and told her that she could insure one of them, but not both.
Working together for a better future
Turning your benefits plan into a strategic opportunity for your business can only happen if you and your employees work together as a team. If your employees aren’t buying into the tools and strategies your advisor is trying to implement, you’re unlikely to achieve the best results your plan has to offer.
How does education help employees?
Through education, you inform and empower your employees. This empowerment allows your employees to choose the benefits that best fit their situations. Consequently, this will increase the satisfaction your employees get from their benefits.
Why is it important to understand your employees' benefits?
In fact, when your employees can see how much you’re helping them, it reinforces just how valuable your benefits plan is.
Why are voluntary benefits important?
Voluntary employee benefits are crucial in filling the gaps in health insurance and protecting your employees and their beneficiaries. Also, these voluntary benefits improve recruiting and retention, improve your employee’s well-being. Make sure that your employees understand what each voluntary option is, and how they can aid your workers.
What happens if you skimp on benefits?
So, if you pour large amounts of time and money into your employee benefits package, but skimp on benefits education, you may be wasting valuable resources. Not only that, but you may also be depreciating the value of your employee benefits for your staff.
What percentage of employees agree with voluntary benefits?
Still, voluntary benefits are often misunderstood and misrepresented. In fact, only 60 percent of employees agree that their company’s benefits communications effectively educated them. Voluntary benefits are valuable products that can fill any gaps in your firm’s health insurance.
What percentage of employees are dissatisfied with health care?
This statistic means that at any one point, 20 percent of your workforce is dissatisfied with their health care benefits. Because health care is such an important part of your overall employee benefits, your business may feel pressure to change your benefits offerings. Still, a total benefits overhaul may not be necessary.
What is the best strategy for a company?
One of the more obvious, yet vital strategies your company can use is to invest in employee education. Your firm needs to spend a proper amount of time, money, and focus on educating employees on their benefits.
Are employers required to provide health insurance in 2021?
Yes, many companies will be required to provide health insurance in 2021. But even if you aren’t required by law, offering some benefits can be a boost to your employee retention.
Help employees understand health insurance 101
Now, for those of you choosing to offer health insurance, the next challenge is how to create a benefits strategy and then explain these benefits to your employees.
1. Break down health insurance options
First things first, you’ll want to sit down and create a “guide” to your healthcare plans. Ideally, this plan should simplify the key things your employees should know about their health insurance and basic terminology. This is to ensure that, if nothing else, they can understand the basic plan and how to use it.
2. Automate the process
Manual education initiatives, such as paper packets and individual check-ins can be hard to track. As your organization scales, it’s typically much easier to use an automated benefits administration system to keep your employees informed.
3. New hire and ongoing engagement and support
Human Resources is a key touchpoint for ensuring employees understand their healthcare needs and medical services covered under their plan.
4. Use different communication strategies
Not everyone learns the same way, and when it comes to conveying information as important as health insurance, it can be useful to have more than one way to explain your organization’s plan.
More on healthcare benefits
Healthcare benefits are likely to remain the most popular perk. Part of providing health insurance is ensuring that your employees know how to use it. But you’ll also want to make sure that your plan makes sense as a part of your overall benefits strategy.
How to educate employees about benefits?
Another effective and proven method for educating your employees about your company’s benefit programs is to encourage employees who have previously availed company benefits in times of need to share their successful experiences. This could be done through a face-to-face session with the rest of the employees, an impactful video or even a written testimonial!
What are non-wage benefits?
Non-wage benefits, such as sick leaves, health insurance, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leaves, etc form a significant aspect of compensation packages and are instrumental in retaining employees and securing top-notch talent . Interestingly, however, while employees place a premium on these benefits, there seems to be a sizable gap ...
Embrace The Digital!
Go Virtual!
- Interactive virtual spaces that carry key resources for easy access, download and sharing are also emerging as an effective solution for such common HR dilemmas. Vfairs, a customizable software that allows companies to host amazing virtual events offers a Virtual Benefits Fair platform as one of its significant features. Through an interactive virtual platform that utilizes ric…
Be Omnipresent!
- Innovation and convention, however, can and should co-exist! The demographic profile of your workforce is likely to be wide and diverse. While the young blood in your company would have a clear predisposition for the deeply enticing world of social media, the elderly segment probably still clings tenaciously to relatively traditional modes of communication such as face-to-face ses…
Visuals Matter!
- Whether you’re preparing a presentation, holding a session or sending an email, enrich and supplement your content with visuals. Gleaning information from endless pages of plain monochromatic text is mind-numbingly tedious! Pair your content with compelling visuals to captivate your employee’s attention. A research study concluded that people following direction…
Everyone Loves Incentives!
- Integrating exciting incentives into your strategy to educate the employees about company benefits is yet another surefire way of gripping their attention. Even the modest lure of attractive goodies, free lunches, and gift vouchers amid the humdrum monotony of office work is sufficient to get them to tune in to what you have to say. Never underestimate the importance of freebies!
Simple Wins The Race!
- No matter how much you’re bombarding your employees with information about company benefits, none of it would really register if the language you employ is inaccessible. The often incomprehensible jargon that companies use to reveal details about their rules and programs acts as one of the greatest disincentives for employees to want to learn more about them. Keeping th…
Keep It Constant!
- Most importantly, efforts to educate your employees about company benefits should be an unceasing, year-long activity. Informing them about company benefits only during onboarding or rolling out the yearly reminder via email and then expecting them to retain everything in the already overcrowded, chaotic recesses of their mind is obviously not realistic. A task as crucial a…