Evaluating and Improving Your Enrollment Period
Open enrollment season is in the rearview mirror, yet the road to improving employee benefits is a round trip. And, like any road trip, it’s best to keep an eye out for signs and familiar sights to help you reach your destination.
A journey like this can be difficult when the path changes as much as the employee benefits landscape. Lucky for organizations, objects appear larger in the rearview. This can offer employers a closer look at the obstacles and opportunities of last year’s enrollment period.
So, what should employers be on the lookout for? How does benefit administration measure the success of an enrollment period? And do these measurements change with employee preferences? When is the right time to evaluate open enrollment procedures, and start adapting them to be more efficient for employees?
The last question presents the easiest answer—the right time for this is always now. Don’t wait for next fall to address today’s obstacles involving open enrollment. The remaining questions, however, can vary based on an organization's benefits administration. To ensure a successful enrollment, it's important for employers to be proactive with their approach. That’s why we created this road map and checklist. Think of this as a year-round guide meant to help you navigate potholes in the enrollment process.
First Stop – Time
Thoughts of fall tend to evoke memories of football games and family gatherings, not open enrollment. They don’t carry the same seasonal whimsy as twinkling lights or falling leaves. That’s why 7 in 10 Americans (67%) spend 30 minutes or less reviewing their benefits during open enrollment.1 Compare this to the 525,600 minutes in a year, employees spend less than 1% of their time reviewing benefits. Yet just because benefits aren’t wrapped in shiny bows doesn’t make them any less important. Here are a couple potholes to watch out for on your way to the next stop:
Pothole 1: Information Overload
It’s easy to see how overwhelming open enrollment can be for employees. Attempting to understand changes to your benefits while juggling a personal and professional life is a daunting task. Important details are bound to be missed, leaving them with the burden of a plan that doesn’t fit all their needs.
Avoid this pothole by sending small, organization-wide emails including benefits education. This intentional information can come from monthly meetings, weekly memos and more. Employees can better plan their benefits. They can also ask informed questions after spending time with the new materials.
Pothole 2: Deadline Crunch
Navigating employee benefits can be like driving on a road with potholes. If you’re not careful, the repercussions can do some damage to your organization. Many open enrollment periods begin November 1. However, these time frames end or extend depending on the state and employer. Anticipating these deadlines can be crucial for developing a benefit strategy. Especially when economic factors, like inflation, have 48% of workers struggling to pay for last year’s benefits. Meanwhile, 40% said inflation made them scale back on benefits during open enrollment.2
Swerving out of the way of these potholes requires small, yet effective messaging. Consider sending emails with year-round reminders about open enrollment tips and time frames. This not only gives employers a deadline to base their work on, it allows employees more time to plan for their benefits today and next year. As a bonus, you will learn where some of these planning potholes are the next time around. Adapting areas of improvement this year can streamline your processes next year.
Second Stop – Engagement
On the road to open enrollment, you are never riding solo. Sitting in the passenger seat are your employees, heading toward the same destination. These passengers can show you the way around traffic jams and time-consuming distractions. They can also be the DJ, setting the tone for the rest of the trip based on their firsthand experiences. In a way, their song choices can tell you what they prefer and what they don’t.
Of course, not all journeys come with the ideal conditions. A lack of employee engagement is an obstacle that grows over time. If not managed, this can manifest itself into organization-wide losses of $450 - $500 billion a year.3 In terms of potholes, that can be a crater to many cars. Ensure your fellow traveler is awake and at-the-ready. An engaged workforce is an effective workforce that enhances the employee enrollment experience. Watch out for the following potholes:
Pothole 3: No Feedback
You wouldn’t go on a road trip without a map, right? Rather than driving wherever the wind takes you, look to your employees. Employee interaction allows employers to better understand their workforce’s unique needs. An efficient way of doing this involves sending year-round email surveys to employees. This allows you to gauge efficiencies and rooms for improvement within the organization.
The key is to keep these surveys short, concise, and consistent. An employee’s time is valuable, so make them feel like the survey is worth investing in. Feedback from surveys can give an organization an opportunity to evolve into future solutions.
Pothole 4: Idle Ideas
A 2022 survey reveals employee engagement has dipped to 32% for employees. This, in comparison with the 18% who say they are actively disengaged, is a recipe for mistakes and miscommunication. When employees say their workplace needs aren’t met, it can boil down to a single idea – a need for recognition.4 Surveys are part of the solution, though they’re not the endgame an organization may hope for. What an employer needs are fresh ideas, so what better place to look than your own team?
If you understand the value of an employee's perspective, you're in good company. Approximately 71% of executives say employee engagement is critical to their success. Employees can be assets by finding and troubleshooting problems within an internal process. Ask for constructive feedback from your employees through surveys and open-door policies. By implementing some of their ideas the following year, you can visibly confirm they are heard and validated. And, as if positive morale wasn’t enough, companies with this type of high employee engagement can see a 21% increase in profits.5
Third Stop – Knowledge
With your time in order, and your engagement active, consider education the gas that will take you all the way to a successful enrollment period. Creating an educational environment allows employee questions to blossom. They may talk about their benefits with loved ones, even changing them for next year. In the end, it all started with easy-to-implement ideas. Here are the final potholes you’ll want to avoid:
Pothole 5: Ignorance
Add Lunch and Learn events into your schedules as an enticing way to engage employees. These occasions can come in the form of webinars, an organization-sponsored event, and other forms of live online content. Doing so will offer employees several avenues for them to participate at their own pace.
Pothole 6: Strange Terrain
So, how do you measure the success of an enrollment period? Passive enrollment bases it's metrics on the number of logins during those four weeks.6 For active enrollment, it’s based by the deadline. For example, you can compare how many employees enroll at the start of enrollment to those who do so near the deadline. This can show the engagement rates to an extent. A key indicator to look for post-enrollment is how many plans were default options (i.e., chose last year’s plan, no changes). Familiarizing yourself with these stats can help you navigate through unfamiliar terrains.
You’ve Arrived
By evaluating last year's enrollment, you can improve next year's benefit experience. Download this roadmap to keep track of the potholes along the way. With these tips and techniques, you'll be on your way to a successful enrollment in no time.
This blog is up to date as of November 2023 and has not been updated for changes in the law, administration or current events.
