Preparing for Your Best Open Enrollment

By JIM TRUJILLO

Even though we’re still well into the warmer months, open enrollment season will be here before you know it. As we’re coming off another year of change and challenges, many companies are reevaluating the new demands of employees and prospective talent, prior to beginning their open enrollment.

It’s no question that employee priorities may have shifted throughout the last 18 months, and with those shifts come differing opinions, wishes, and expectations on what employers can provide. Open enrollment is an opportunity for companies to meet these new wants and needs, as well as demonstrate their concern for employee well-being.

While this open enrollment season may present some challenges, it’s never too early to begin preparing for one of the HR industry’s busiest times of year. Here are some items to consider to help make your company’s open enrollment season the smoothest one yet.

ESTABLISHING YOUR BENEFITS OFFERINGS

Most HR professionals understand that competitive benefits packages can impact employee attraction and retention. Because of this, many industry professionals are turning their attention to creating robust offerings to meet their employees’ ever-evolving needs.

But first things first – you must evaluate your current benefits offering to understand where any gaps may, or may not, be. Remember the age-old phrase, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” If you look at your comprehensive package and there isn’t room for improvement, well go buy yourself a lottery ticket because you may be one of the luckiest people around. The reality is, most benefits packages have the opportunities for enhancement in some way, shape, or form – it’s just a matter of what best fits the needs of your workforce.

However, with the endless possibility of benefits offerings, selecting the right ones can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Every available option is not necessarily ideal for each and every company. The benefits your company offers should support your unique culture and workforce dynamic. It may be your employees are more concerned about physical health, or financial wellbeing. If that’s the case possibly consider adding options to your comprehensive package that support those wishes.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Now that you have a comprehensive benefits package to present, how do you measure success for your company’s open enrollment? HR teams want to understand how well their employees engage with communications, and ultimately, how that impacts enrollments. But what exactly should you measure? This may look different depending on your company’s metrics, but there are some standard measurements to consider:

• Number of enrollments by a certain date

• Number of 1-on-1 meetings your team holds

• Engagement in enrollment communications

• Trends in enrollments in conjunction with communications

• Impact of benefits on employees

• Impact of benefits on the company

Setting expectations and tracking these data points can help your team better understand what messages and offerings best resonate with your employees. This information can help you determine if the current enrollment season was successful and provide you with insight for additional changes in the future.