Plan Now for an Unforgettable Open Enrollment

Many companies schedule their benefits open enrollment process to take place in the fall, when employees have a clearer sense of their needs for the year ahead. But making an impact with open enrollment is a year-round effort, and it benefits from advance planning, creativity and empathy.

As an annually recurring event, open enrollment runs the risk of seeming rote or uninspiring to employees — or, at worst, a frustrating chore. Here are a few ways your company can up-level your open enrollment communications approach.

Benefits documentation contains all sorts of legally mandated elements that can feel drab and uninspiring — meaning it’s all the more important that you make your communications as engaging as possible. Employees will be interacting with this content for as long as a month, so establishing a creative and visually appealing internal brand for the process can keep it from feeling monotonous and help it stand out from other company communications.

A small design investment in developing dedicated colors, fonts and other visual elements can provide an important thread that leads employees from the beginning to the end of the open enrollment period. For increased engagement, consider using people-focused photography in place of generic icons, and keep the visuals warm and inviting. Alongside your digital efforts, consider including a branded print element like a mailed brochure, which can help family members and loved ones at home more easily participate in the process.

With costs going up, it’s important to keep employees enthusiastic about benefits by focusing on the positive. Be transparent about any changes and why they’re being made, but always be sure to highlight what’s remaining or improving to show how your full total rewards package can help improve quality of life and support employees through challenges. Put a human face on your offerings by spotlighting real-life stories that demonstrate the impact your company’s benefits have on individual employees.

Throughout, it’s helpful to keep in mind that your audience isn’t living and breathing the details in the way that your comms and HR teams are. Resist the urge to underline every last benefit and detail, or you run the risk of overwhelming employees and shutting them down. On top of what’s new and changing, choose three to five top benefits to feature across your messaging, and encourage employees to use other resources to seek out further information.

One way to keep employees from drowning in detail is to personalize your communications to ensure they’re reaching the people who need them most. Different employee audiences have unique needs, and the more you segment your audience and target their messages, the better. For instance, a 22-year-old entry-level employee could be particularly interested in tuition reimbursement, while a longer-tenured or more senior colleague might be focused on additional retirement catch-up contributions.

Most companies stage some sort of in-person benefit fair at key locations, with vendors and HR teams on hand to discuss specific benefits and resources. By transforming them into something that employees can look forward to, these events can become occasions to build culture, demonstrate appreciation and spark joy while serving their primary informational purpose.

One common way to do this is to provide on-site perks like healthy snacks, free chair massages and smoothie bikes that allow employees to mix their own treats by pedaling on stationary cycles. But you can mount truly memorable events by incorporating activities that give employees the opportunity to do something fun and creative, giving them a mental health break. Craft stations, coloring pages and organized games are only the start. You can take it a step further by adding a charitable component, partnering with local non-profits to channel employees’ creative energy into something that can benefit the community while encouraging wellness.

Across all these options, the best solutions are the ones that most faithfully reflect your business and culture. ROI is happy to work with you at any time to help devise an open enrollment strategy to remember or to seek new ways to enhance your existing approach.

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