Open enrollment is a confusing time for your employees. They’re lost, dazed, and confused, trying to make heads and tails of which account covers what and how much money they’ll be out of pocket every paycheck for their elections.
You and I both know the critical role tax-advantaged savings accounts play in making healthcare more affordable for employees. Still, employees don’t always recognize the potential cost savings associated with them until presented with real numbers.
Here’s why this is important:
The estimated cost of health insurance for a family of 4 in 2018 was $28,000 (Milliman), where the median income for a family of 4 was $61,400 (CNBC). That means approximately 45.6% of the average family’s income went towards healthcare expenses.
Could you imagine the financial stress of knowing that almost half of your annual income would be going towards healthcare? And what happens when employees get stressed? I’ll give you a hint: lower benefits satisfaction, distracted workforce, higher turnover... blah blah blah.
Research shows that employees struggle with even basic account knowledge and are asking for education, tools, and support to understand their value better.
They desperately need help answering the questions:
- Which account is right for me?
- How much should I contribute?
- What should I do with my assets?
This can be accomplished by implementing a benefits communication strategy that is more than a “one-size-fits-all” approach. We want to plan communication strategies that will catch employees and guide them through every stage of their decision-making life cycle.
The communication strategies with the highest success rates for this are:
- Communicating by life stage
- Leveraging word of mouth
- Customized communication for multiple generations
- Year-round communication
- Communicating in multiple languages
- Simplifying complicated benefits content
The good news is that Medcom can also help with this! Our Open Enrollment marketing program is an email specific program that puts together the pieces of healthcare finances for you and your employees.
We manage everything for you and deploy the email communications directly to your benefit-eligible employees. The only information you need to provide is an email address for all eligible employees (via secure email), your open enrollment deadline, and where you would like us to direct employees to enroll in a flexible spending or health savings account.
All consumers process information differently; therefore, our open enrollment campaign communicates vital messages in various ways, including videos, quizzes, calculators, infographics, blog articles, and glossaries. This helps ensure the campaign is impactful, memorable, and drives results.
Looking for more info?
Click HERE to register for our webinar on Tuesday, November 5th, at 2 pm EST.
