Employees Don’t Understand Benefits: 6 Fixes for Open Enrollment

Nearly 90% of your employees don’t understand benefits. And that’s a real concern as open enrollment season is knocking on our doors.

Employees need to understand the benefits they have, the benefits they need and the benefits they could have.

That means HR pros and their teams want to improve the education so employees understand benefits and make better decisions during open enrollment. Then, they can use and engage with what’s available and ideal for them throughout the year.

Why They Don’t Understand Benefits

Eighty-six percent of employees are confused by their benefits, according to a BusinessSolver study. (Anecdotally, the previous year’s study found that 15% at least knew where their card was!)

Beyond being confused, many don’t care enough to learn more. About 90% of employees say they usually just select the same plan from the prior year, according to a survey by Voya Financial. That way, they don’t have to think too much about the whole process.

Knowing that most employees don’t fully understand where they stand with benefits, you’ll want to help them learn more.

Conveying Complex Information

Think of benefits information as complex information. Yes, easy for you to understand. But employees don’t always understand the terminology, concepts and applications. So use these best practices for conveying complex information during open enrollment.

1. Start with Intrigue

People will try harder to understand information – complex or simple – when they’re interested in it from the get-go. So get them intrigued before you start to break down the complex information.

A couple of tactics:

Give them the WIFM (What’s In It For Me). Tease your audience with how information will benefit them in the end. For instance, “You want to know how you can save 25% on your health insurance costs this year, right?”

Set up the suspense. Instead of scary suspense, give employees a sunny suspense. For instance, “A third of your colleagues saved 25% on their healthcare costs last year. You should be able to do it this year.”

2. Simplify (Again and Again)

Most people think they’ve simplified their message to the barest bones. Meanwhile, they’re still steps away from people actually understanding it.

Communication expert Bruce Lambert gives this advice: “Simplify far beyond when you think you’ve simplified enough.”

One way – and this is an old tool we use in journalism – is to break it down like you’re explaining it to your grandmother. Of course, she’s smart and sassy. So she likely only needs the most basic version to grasp the concept.

3. Focus on the Problem

When you need to communicate complex information, focus on the problem it solves rather than on describing what the solution does or how something works.

For instance, avoid getting into how employees can change elections so their benefits plan costs less. Instead, focus on the problem – perhaps, high deductibles – and how two changes during enrollment can lessen those.

4. Divide and Conquer

When your audience must know the background or broader information – details you need to include beyond the problem – break it into two categories. Then drop a few items in each so they can recognize the difference and more easily digest the information.

For instance, in the case of healthcare benefits, you might break them down to Me & We. You could say, “‘Me’ is the care you pay for – such as deductible, co-pay and express clinic care. ‘We’ is the care your insurance pays for – such as costs beyond copay and deductible, annual well visits, emergency care.”

5. Compare the Unfamiliar to the Familiar

When people can see the correlation between something they’re familiar with and something that’s foreign to them, the foreign becomes familiar.

When possible, compare something complex to something that touches their everyday lives.

For instance, employees might not understand all the codes associated with the care they receive – the codes that healthcare providers use to diagnose and bill, which show up on the Explanation of Benefits (EOBs). But they likely see the codes associated with produce and deli items in the supermarket. So you might say, “Healthcare codes, like supermarket codes, are a universal language that allow everyone from healthcare providers to insurers to help you manage your well-being.”

6. Practice

Communicating complex information doesn’t come naturally, Lambert warns.

First, you’ll want to memorize key phrases – those that break down the complex information into its most essential parts. That way, you’ll always know what to say and can lean into those if people seem confused.

Finally, when you know you’ll need to convey complex information – especially during open enrollment – practice in front of the mirror, on video and with friends until it’s second nature.

Next Step for HR

Join us on Tuesday, Nov. 25th, for 5 Strategies to Help Employees Understand Total Rewards — a free webinar to get practical ideas to strengthen pay literacy and show employees the full value of your rewards package. Save your spot.