Wellness Programs Call for Better Benefits Communications
Wellness programs are all the rage this year. But what’s the point of a program that employees don’t understand and, therefore, don’t use? Midwest Business Group on Health has done some research evaluating employee engagement in health benefits and wellness programs.
Here’s another tidbit from our new video course: Transform Benefits Education with On-demand Video.
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that we’ve touched on which benefits videos to start with to get the most interest and involvement from your viewers. Will it be your Consumer Directed Health Plan or your 401(k)? You will also have learned what to include in an Open Enrollment video, which is a powerful place to start engaging employees.
If you are incorporating benefits videos into your communications strategy, how do you decide which videos to invest in first?
GuideSpark has created a new video course to assist HR departments making the exciting leap into video communication. In this course, our director of Content Development and Video expert extraordinaire, Joseph Larocque, explains that topics which are more complex or require careful explanation are natural places to start. Good candidates are core benefits, Open Enrollment changes and tough messages such as a premium increase.
Benefits communication videos aren’t rocket science, but it can sure help to have some experience with what works and what doesn’t.
In his new video course–Transform Benefits Education with Video–Joseph Larocque, GuideSpark’s Director of Content Development and video expert extraordinaire, recommends including these five pieces of basic information:
As the recession forces companies to cut back on spending and get more out of their investments, here’s yet another study from UNUM offering evidence that investing in better benefits communications is sound advice.
Taken in December 2010 following last year’s annual enrollment period, the UNUM study finds that effective benefits education enables employees to make better choices, can increase employee loyalty and improves how employees rate their benefits packages.
As busy as it can be, open enrollment is a good time to reflect on the effectiveness of your company’s benefits communication. While everyone seems to agree that benefits communication on the whole needs improvement, many organizations are in denial about how critical that improvement is to their own organization.
Findings from the 2011 Aflac WorkForces Report highlighted the discrepancy between how companies and their workers view benefits communications:
What’s the question? Have you read the recent headlines?
Surely there are more options for proactive organizations than just waiting for the US Congress to work together to uncover ways to reduce both the country’s budget deficit and soaring health care costs. At the recent 24th Annual Benefits Forum and Expo in Dallas, two industry experts highlighted some key ways to reverse these trends.
New instructional video gives HR organizations a timely resource to develop customizable benefits communication videos for open enrollment
GuideSpark, delivering the latest web solutions for HR communications and training, introduces a video white paper to aid HR organizations in the development and launch of their own, customized benefits communication videos.
Employees seek retirement advice from their employers
A majority of people have agreed they would like more guidance from their employer about how to achieve retirement goals according to the 11th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey.
Perhaps not surprisingly, employees with a higher overall education level are more likely to be financially well in retirement. Only 63% of employees with only a high school diploma participated in a retirement plan, as opposed to 84% of those with a college degree.
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.
Here are some highlights from the study:
