Want to control your company’s healthcare costs, improve company-wide wellness, and increase employee job satisfaction? Keep healthcare benefits top of mind throughout the year.
If your healthcare benefits program is like most, your communication strategy probably centers around two annual events: open enrollment and the start of the new benefit year. While these are important outreach opportunities—and in some ways the easiest, since people are already thinking about their benefits during these times—reaching out to employees twice a year isn’t enough to sustain engagement year-round.
The reality is, staying up to speed on benefits, especially healthcare benefits, simply isn’t a priority for most American workers. SHRM reports that 41% of employees can’t identify all of the elements that add up to the full cost of their healthcare; nearly half say benefits decisions are “very stressful;” and 20% admit to not keeping up with benefits correspondence (for example, they skip company benefits meetings, don't read summary plan descriptions, or file/throw away benefits materials unread).
Whether your program serves 100 employees or 10,000, you have a meaningful opportunity to help employees navigate their healthcare offerings and get the most out of their benefits. When done effectively, these engagement efforts can help reduce costs for your healthcare plans, improve benefits utilization, and increase employee satisfaction and retention. The key is to develop an integrated communications strategy that includes well-executed touchpoints every month of the year—and it’s easier than you might think.
For already busy HR teams, the thought of adding year-round health benefits communications to the list of priority initiatives may seem daunting. But investing the time and effort into a more holistic engagement strategy can have a big impact. Employee Benefits News reports that “when employees don’t use the full spectrum of benefits available to them . . . the risk of poorer health outcomes and higher employer and employee healthcare costs increases, with more than $210 billion a year spent on inappropriate and unnecessary treatment.”
Retention is another reason to pursue year-round engagement. When employees are aware of the full range of benefits available to them, they’re typically happier with their jobs and are more likely to stay, according to SHRM.
Year-round engagement can also produce a company-wide culture of health and wellness. Forbes reports that 61% of respondents to a 2019 survey on benefit trends agreed that they made healthier lifestyle choices because of their company’s wellness programs.
You already excel at building rapport with employees and developing communication strategies that work for your team. Building on this strong foundation with some additional marketing tactics, you’ll be able to keep healthcare benefits top-of-mind throughout the year.
Building a great healthcare benefits package is important, but the work doesn’t end there. To ensure employees get the most out of your company’s offerings, you need to remind them of all the ways your program can support their healthcare needs. Developing and implementing a year-round healthcare benefits engagement strategy is an investment, but it’s worth the effort. With the right mix of tactics and messages, your team can drive increased benefits utilization, reduce healthcare costs, and improve employee satisfaction and retention.
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