3 Reasons to Consider Guided Enrollments
Imagine you have the blueprint for your enrollment experience from last year. How does it look? Is it a clear map, detailing every step of the benefit process? Or do you find yourself overwhelmed by the mess left by excessive spending, inefficient processes, and a lack of engagement? If the latter sounds familiar, you’re not alone. More than half of America admits to feeling overwhelmed and discouraged during open enrollment. Yet, in this same survey, 8 in 10 Americans rank health benefits as one of their top priorities for a workplace.1
The disconnect between what employees want and what employers offer can cause problems. Like cracks in the foundation of your organization, they may grow larger. These can shake organizations like yours from the ground up. Issues that could cause this include costly vendor expenses and lack of clarity.
Don’t wait for the next tremor in the benefit landscape to slow your growth. Be proactive and consider an open enrollment process that benefits you. While self-enrollment remains popular, a guided enrollment offers advantages that the other lacks. These include cost-saving measures for employers and year-round education for employees.
Consider the difference between the two experiences like building a skyscraper with or without an architect. With guided enrollments, you and a professional can design a foundation that fits the needs of your organization. Here are a few key building blocks for a successful foundation:
Reason 1: A Curated Approach
Employees can be like skyscrapers across a city skyline. Each one is unique, distinguished by their presences and inner purposes. Diversity can be beneficial to an organization’s growth but can also come with confusion. Managing your organization is a full-time job without considering the ins and outs of an open enrollment.
It’s understandable why employers may opt for an online-only enrollment. Between the availability and a hands-off approach, an employer can fall into a false sense of security. In a recent study, only 12% of employees said they prefer self-service enrollments.2
You don’t have to go through this process alone. As an employer, you cannot be in two places at once let alone everywhere in your organization. With guided enrollments, employees maintain control of their healthcare.
Guided support gives employees tools to create a plan that fits their lifestyle. In turn, this means cost-saving measures for the organization.
Reason 2: Stay in the Know
There are many ways to make a skyscraper. But would you trust every person’s opinion on how to build one? Like building a skyscraper without oversight, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. This makes choosing the right experience for your employees that much more important.
With a guided enrollment, information to help you navigate the evolving benefits landscape can be easier to understand. That’s in part to a guided support system keeping your organization in mind and informed. The other part of this involves how that information about benefits are perceived by employees.
Approximately 68% of employees report learning about their health coverage from online sources. Furthermore, almost half of the same employees turned to loved ones to fill in the information gaps, and you can see why consistency in communication is vital.3
These enrollments can help drive awareness of educational programs and resources. An efficient workforce is one with resources at their disposal – like giving a construction crew the tools to create your skyscraper. This correlates with the 84% of employees who found these in-person sessions useful.4
Reason 3: Peace of Mind
Three employer benefits challenges involve controlling costs, increasing efficiencies, and ensuring legal compliance. A single, easy-to-handle solution could help resolve these.
Sounds simple, right?
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. As mentioned, guided support can help uncover vendor costs and unused plans. In turn, you can fund things that build upon your workplace culture. This will also create efficiencies in otherwise slow, laborious processes.
Best of all, you won’t have to rely on at-hand knowledge of the ins and outs of benefits legislation. They make it their priority to treat your legal safety and healthcare coverage with care.
Building on Benefits
Open enrollment season is inevitable – what isn’t is how employers engage with them. Using some of the cornerstones of guided enrollment. You can stand tall knowing your organization is in the care of in-person professionals dedicated to your growth.
This blog is up to date as of February 2024 and has not been updated for changes in the law, administration or current events.
