How To Evolve Your Open Enrollment Processes into a Talent Retention Strategy

There are many times throughout the year when your HR teams are busier than usual. This is especially the case when carrying out specific responsibilities throughout the year that are associated with strict deadlines. Open enrollment season, for example, can often be an important but hectic time of year for HR teams and employees alike. Not only do employees have a limited window of time to make necessary adjustments to their benefits package, but HR teams need to make sure all of these changes make their way through the necessary systems before their carrier's fourth quarter cutoff for transmitting files. When handled poorly, open enrollment periods can turn into a frustrating and disengaging experience for employees. However, when approached strategically, these annual periods can also be the perfect opportunity to educate and support both new and current employees, helping to strengthen your talent retention efforts.

Focus on the Employee Experience

Once you’ve had the opportunity to complete all your open enrollment and Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting requirements, you can now take a moment to breathe and review how efficiently all of your workflows were executed. However, beyond just looking at workflow efficiencies, you should also consider the overall employee experience. Take the time to gather your HR team so you can gain feedback and perspective from multiple company stakeholders. Spend time with each individual and record their thoughts and opinions on the whole process, and if they experienced any specific pain points that need to be addressed. Your goal should be to understand how well your open enrollment periods are supporting new or inexperienced employees. Consider things such as whether instructions were clear enough, if any of your employees were confused with the process, and if they understood the value of all the benefits being offered. If you identify specific patterns showing up between both groups on areas of concern, be sure to highlight those areas and make them a higher priority to address. You also should have a good look at your systems to make sure you’re clearing any technical roadblocks that might slow down submissions and create a plan of action for fixing them well before the next open enrollment period.

Embed Learning and Development Into Your Benefits Strategy

To create a deeper connection with your employees by treating benefits education as a year-long process, not just something tied to your open enrollment timelines. This all begins the moment a new employee joins the business. Your employee onboarding protocols should be clear and easy to understand, and provide a simple introduction to their benefits package. This helps to set the stage for future open enrollment periods. If your employees feel more informed and confident in their coverage decisions early on, it only helps to make open enrollment periods more streamlined for everyone moving forward. To help reinforce this, consider offering multiple formats for training on your benefits plans. For example, you could host a lunch and learn to go over benefits coverage options in a more relaxed setting or introduce short video summaries of benefits plans provided by your carriers. This makes learning more engaging and can help your employees retain more information.

Update Your Processes with the Right Technology

Take the time to review your benefits technology and ensure it’s meeting your ongoing needs. Remember that not all BenAdmin platforms or supporting technologies may offer the same benefits as a best-of-breed solution. Because of this, it’s important that you evaluate your ongoing technology needs and ensure you’re able to capitalize on features, such as:

• Seamless Integrations - Your benefits platform should be able to link directly with your HRIS, benefits carriers, payroll systems, and other core HR technologies. This ensures that any employee data that's collected can seamlessly move between systems without requiring additional manual efforts.

• Effortless Payroll - With the right benefits technology in place, you should be able to sync employee deduction information without needing to navigate multiple systems. This not only reduces workloads on your HR teams but also leads to fewer payroll errors.

• Real-Time Carrier Updates - Best-of-breed BenAdmin platforms ensure that whenever enrollment data for your employees is updated, it's automatically sent to your carrier portals in the exact format required. This ensures that sensitive employee information is transmitted safely and securely, with no unnecessary access from other employees. It also simplifies and streamlines open enrollment processes, eliminating additional administrative steps placed on busy HR teams.

Communicate Carrier Changes Empathetically

If you’ve decided it’s time to think about changing benefits carriers, it’s important to make sure you get the right guidance during the process. Bringing in an employee benefits broker can be really helpful when understanding all your available options while also ensuring you’re able to shortlist carriers based on specific company objectives or your long-term budget needs. However, it’s important to remember that while carrier changes may be necessary for the business, it’s still critical to focus on how these changes can impact your team. Before you start making official benefits carrier changes, it’s really important to ensure your employees are kept in the loop.  Give them ample notice about any changes coming down the pipeline and provide them with the necessary resources they need to adapt to the new offerings. Taking this step builds trust with your teams and shows them that you’ve considered their needs when making your carrier decisions.

Plan Ahead to Perfect Your Technology and Your Training Processes

One of the biggest mistakes companies can make when making important improvements to their open enrollment processes is planning out changes too late in the year. Right after an open enrollment period ends, it’s important to carry out next year’s planning as soon as possible, especially if there are a number of improvements necessary. When you initiate benefits technology discussions early on, it gives you time to connect with your technology partner and plan out phased improvements throughout the year. This gives you the opportunity to test out new features or solutions long before the next open enrollment period begins and gives you the chance to iron out any wrinkles during the process. More importantly, though, it gives you the space to develop, test, and roll out your new training and communication materials to your employees. Your main goal should be to ensure everyone feels adequately prepared to handle all of their open enrollment workflows going into next year. This means having enough time to identify issues, implement necessary fixes, and ensure both HR teams and employees are adequately trained on any new processes. Taking these steps makes sure no one feels rushed during open enrollment, minimizing the likelihood of submission errors or missed deadlines.

Transforming Open Enrollment into an Opportunity

Whether you manage your employee benefits in-house or outsource administration to outside teams, it’s important that your business is adequately prepared for open enrollment windows each year. An important element of this is to understand how impactful your employee onboarding and ongoing training strategies have been over the year. By prioritizing employee experiences throughout all your open enrollment processes, integrating year-round benefits training, and leveraging technology to help empower your teams, you’ll create a much more cohesive company culture that helps you attract and retain top talent over time.

Author Bio: Frank Mengert

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, a leading provider of employee benefits solutions. Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.