This week, I had the pleasure of attending the 2018 Mid-Sized Retirement and Healthcare Plan Management Conference in San Francisco — one of the best conferences I've been to, largely because of the openness of the attendees and their willingness to participate in what seemed like one huge knowledge share.

I talked to dozens of benefits specialists and managers who are on the ground, tackling the biggest challenges in employee benefits today. In my conversations, a few recurring themes kept popping up. I've collected the top five most common challenges I heard below — along with the most creative and inspiring solutions from the experts in the room.

1. Educating employees about their plan choices.

Employee education is always challenging — but if there's one thing I heard over and over again, it's that employee education is particularly challenging during open enrollment.

From the die-hard PPO employees ("I've had a PPO for 15 years, you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands") to those who just don't get what a HDHP is ("So... I can never go to the doctor again?"), it's clear that employees find plan selection confusing, intimidating, and frustrating.

Luckily, the expert attendees had some great tips — #1 was particularly admirable:

Crowdsourced tips:

• Offer "office hours" during open enrollment for one-on-one sessions with employees to ask you questions.
• Ask your broker if they have any plan selection resources your employees can use, like a health plan cost calculator.
• Use a decision support tool like Alex.

2. Doing a full replacement with a high deductible health plan.

Switching up your health plan offerings is stressful no matter what — but going from multiple options to only a HDHP can induce a wrath like no other.

We heard from multiple benefits managers that their full replacement was rocky, to say the least. Some employees felt their coverage was being stripped away, while others just didn't understand how to best utilize their new plan.

Crowdsourced tips:

• Do it over 2-3 years — start by nixing your HMO in year one, and eliminate all your PPO plans by year three. Be upfront and clear with your employees about your long-term plan, so there's no surprises down the road.
• Make the switch more appealing by offering a companion benefit to your HDHP that helps employees save money on healthcare costs. (Not to brag, but many HDHP companies choose Amino for this very purpose.)

3. Offering innovative solutions while being respectful of less tech-savvy employees.

Today, so many innovative benefits solutions come in the form of a mobile app or complex website. Again and again, we heard the same thing: "The problem is, I have employees who don't have reliable access to a computer or phone — and I don't want to leave them in the dust."

It seems a lot of mid-size employers are looking into advocacy services (with telephonic support) as a good fit. Here are some additional suggestions we heard:

Crowdsourced tips:

• Make sure that whatever vendor you work with has served companies with employees that aren't so tech-savvy before, so they've worked out the kinks before working with you.
• When doing vendor selection, make it clear that customer service is a priority.

4. Satisfying the C-suite's cost reduction demands while keeping employees happy.

Medical trend keeps creeping up — some employers we talked to saw a 15-20% increase in their premiums just this year. It's no wonder benefits managers are feeling the pressure to reduce healthcare spend... but they need to keep employees happy, too. It's a catch-22.

So, what can do you?

Crowdsourced tips:

• Don't just target your plan offerings. Reduce costs without switching up your plans by educating employees about going to the right care setting — urgent care or even telemedicine instead of the emergency room, for example. As Jean Young said in Monday's keynote, the future is all about finding new technologies that can push employees to "the next best action." (If you're curious in learning more about this strategy, check out Amino.)

5. Introducing an HSA (and educating employees about it) when it feels like such a mystery compared to a 401(k).

One question we asked attendees throughout the conference was which workshop they found most useful. The most common answer we heard? The workshop on HSAs, HRAs, and FSAs.

Many people said that the session opened their eyes to the multitudinous benefits of an HSA — one financial expert went so far as to say she knew barely anything about HSAs before this week.

One attendee framed the challenge particularly well: we're in this awkward phase where your HSA is suddenly just as important as 401(k), but no one knows how to use it — much less maximize it.

Crowdsourced tips:

• Invite a personal finance expert to come on-site and do an informational session on HSAs.
• Find an HSA vendor who's willing to put in the work to help educate your employees during open enrollment. (Amino's HSA wouldn't be a bad place to start...)

More tips and tricks

We heard so many great, creative suggestions at this year's conference. Have one we missed? We'd love to hear from you! Reach us at feedback@amino.com.

See you next year!