One major benefit employees fail to use to its fullest

September 18, 2009 by Christian Schappel

If your company takes on the expense of offering dental coverage to employees, you’d like to see that benefit used to its max.

But it probably isn’t, considering:

Just one in three employees feel they have the info they need about their company’s dental options to pick the right coverage, while
One in five admit they have “no idea” what is and isn’t covered.

Those are the shocking findings of the recent “Dental Insights” study by MetLife.

The 3-pronged approach that works best

Understanding the plan seems to be the key to keeping employees happy with (and using) what your company’s offering, says MetLife.

But beware: Successfully educating employees about these benefits requires a multi-faceted approach:

Educate them on coverage. Yes, tell them what’s covered and what isn’t. But also provide things like a utilization summary so folks know which benefits they’ve used so far
Use “uncommon resources” such as oral health risk assessments, and
Stress the importance of oral health. When employees grasp the link between oral health and overall health, they’ll become better consumers.

Arlene Dixon Says:
September 18th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
My over 20 years in this HR industry has accumulative examples of this benefit being under utilized. In depth analysis revelaved that persons with a historical dental practice from childhood continues into adult tendencies. If employees had poor or no dental hygiene in the past, they are somewhat timid and has no sense of urgency to start at the later stages unless its dire strait.

Informative programs worked in our culture ….I suppose it may differ per organizational and social environs.

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