Benefits communication used to engage and retain employees as economy improves
Mercer recently announced the results of their Attraction and Retention Survey, covering over 320 employers this year. These are their most valuable findings:
Better economy means higher employee turnover. As the economy and job market continue to improve, 62% of companies think employee turnover will increase as well. When employees have more options, they are less likely to be loyal unless their company puts effort into keeping them.
Companies are expanding again. The economy is picking up and so is hiring. Nearly all companies surveyed are hiring. In fact, only 3% are reducing their workforce. Nearly one-third (27%) of companies are expanding, up from 12% shown in the 2009 Unprecedented Times Survey. This is a clear sign of companies’ confidence in the economy.
Companies are concentrating on engagement to retain employees. Employee engagement has increased in 47% of companies in the last 12-18 months, likely thanks to companies’ specific efforts. Engaged employees are less likely to stray and have higher performance levels, according to a Mercer principal. Retention is as important as expansion, when other employers can lure good talent away.
Benefits communication is the highest contributor to increasing employee engagement. Organizations have increased non-cash rewards as a means of retaining and engaging employees in the past 18 months. The reward most often used was benefits communication, which companies have used 27% more. Even as the economy improves, non-cash rewards serve as an important means of curbing turnover. Non-cash rewards are a good way of communicating confidence and appreciation for employees. It is also much cheaper to implement rewards programs than to hire new replacement employees. If employees don’t understand, value, or even know about these rewards then they won’t merit much. That’s why benefits communication has become such a vital resource for companies to keep employees engaged and loyal.
A new study by UNUM demonstrates the power of effective benefits education. Employers with highly rated benefits education had job satisfaction rates of 88% vs. 45% for those employers with fair or poor benefits education – a difference of 43 points! Employers with effective benefits education programs enjoyed increased employee engagement, loyalty, morale and productivity – ultimately driving up the ROI of significant investments in the benefits themselves.
Benefits education proven effective for increasing employee satisfaction
Here are some highlights from the study:
- “What you say” is as important as “what you do.”When it comes to workplace satisfaction, the way that you communicate benefits may be just as important as the benefits themselves. In fact, those employers with poor quality benefits packages were able to improve workplace satisfaction ratings by 32 points with highly rated benefits education.
- Benefits Changes on the Rise; Quality of Benefits Education on the Decline. Roughly half (45%) of employees surveyed reported that they had seen changes in their benefits packages in 2009. And yet, the quality of benefits education declined sharply as 29% of workers gave their benefits education positive ratings in 2009 vs. 39% in 2008.
- Accommodate various learning styles. 70% of employees surveyed use web-based materials when available. Online videos and interactive tools are a great way to satisfy all three learning styles – visual, auditory and “hands on.”
- Effective benefits education helps retain talented employees. In fact, 77% of employees who believed their company had good benefits education said they would stay with their employer even if they were offered the same pay and benefits elsewhere. As the job market improves, employees feel more comfortable looking elsewhere, so communicating the value of benefits is important.
Investments in benefits education can be a low-cost, high-impact way to affect worker satisfaction. Even when paired with a below par benefits package, effective benefits education can be a cheap means to dramatically improve job satisfaction, employee engagement, loyalty and productivity. Unlock the value of your benefits package with benefits education.
Today, GuideSpark announced two new modules for its Benefits Learning Center solution. These modules automate and streamline New Hire Training and benefits communications for Open Enrollment. As companies continue to prioritize doing more with less, many employers are looking for more efficient and effective ways to deal with these resource-intensive processes.
Consider for a moment the staff time and dollars go into facilitating New Hire Training and Open Enrollment each year. Many companies we’ve met with offer half-day New Hire orientations on a near weekly basis. Not to mention the time and effort that goes into the creation of the stacks of paper that employees receive on their first day. Open enrollment presents a similar situation. Each year, HR staff offer a collection of live seminars to explain benefits changes, often preceded by brochures, mailers and the like. Despite all of this effort, nearly 80% of employers believe that their employees do not have a good understanding of their benefits.
Many employers have asked us how they free up their valuable, and in many cases shrinking HR staff to work on strategic projects while improving rates of benefits understanding among employees. In addition, finding ways to communicate effectively has become an even higher priority as employers prepare to make difficult announcements about cutting programs and/or asking employees to take on a greater share of health care costs.
Our answers to such questions naturally start with what we know to be true about today’s employees:
- First, given the trend of increasingly distributed workforces and the importance of family decision makers, on-site seminars fail to provide reach
- Next, given the explosion of web multimedia and sites like YouTube, employees have become accustomed to rich, short-form content. The busy professional of today simply does not have the attention span to thumb through lengthy benefits documents.
GuideSpark’s Benefits Learning Center modules embrace these trends to provide a modern and engaging multimedia solution capable of reaching your distributed workforce and their families. This online solution automates open enrollment and new hire training workflows to free up valuable resources. Employees have on demand access to a library of multimedia benefits presentations, allowing them to direct and personalize their learning experience. In addition, these modules offer custom checklists for open enrollment and new hire on boarding, so that employees can conveniently track their progress.
Please take a look at the New Hire Training and Open Enrollment demonstrations on our site to better understand the power of these new modules.
Today, GuideSpark announced two core products focused on the issues of corporate benefits education and employee financial wellness. Over the last 18 months, we’ve had a chance to meet with many employers – from small businesses to large enterprises, from Silicon Valley technology companies to retail chains to government organizations. Not surprisingly, each of these employers carries a similar burden – how to reduce the cost of benefits while continuing to offer a competitive compensation package.
While many HR professionals concede that their employees have a poor understanding of their benefits package, most underestimate the impact of this situation on their bottom line. Employees who don’t understand their benefits are more likely to:
- Make poor election decisions, driving up benefit costs
- Access benefits information in the most costly way possible – through calls to your human resources staff and call center
- Be less satisfied with their compensation and more likely to leave
Benefits communications is a critical tool for managing costs in this environment. Our offerings are targeted at improving the failing rates of benefits understanding among employees today to help employers realize the full value of their considerable investments in benefits. We move far beyond the standard fare of thick benefits handbooks to provide a comprehensive curriculum of engaging multimedia education for today’s employee. By providing more modern and more effective benefits communications, employers can cut the cost of benefits, while motivating and retaining employees.
