Benefits education with year-round communication

As we move into a tight labor market in the second half of 2021, organizations will need a strong employee benefits messaging strategy to recruit and retain talent. However, for this strategy to work, organizations must educate their workforce about their benefits offering. 

In this podcast episode, Chris Bernadine, Sr., Chief Enrollment Officer at Meridio, and Rob Quell, a Vice President at Colonial Life, discuss the importance of year-round benefits education and provide tactical tips for employers to maintain benefits communications throughout the year.

• The correlation between retention and employee satisfaction. Current data shows the direct connection between how well companies are educating employees on benefits to overall employee satisfaction and retention levels. [01:58]
• Employee benefits is a recruitment and retention technique. We look at the top three reasons why employees choose to work for an employer and why they stay. [03:38]
• Take a year-round approach to benefits education. For most organizations, enrollment happens during the fourth quarter, with benefits education squeezed into that short period before open enrollment. However, organizations that communicate to employees throughout the year tend to be more successful with their benefits strategy. [05:02]
• Major life changes and events. Individual circumstances and lives are constantly changing. Employers need to remind employees to re-evaluate their benefits selection and those parts with time sensitivity during life events. [11:25]
• Six tips for year-round benefits communication. Best practices and tactical tips for employers to improve benefits education.  [14:03]
• Additional resources: SHRM webinar, The power of benefits education all year round.  

 Christopher Bernardine Sr.
Chief Enrollment Officer, Meridio 

Chris is the current Chief Enrollment Officer of Meridio, a benefit communication software and enrollment company that specializes in working with associations, insurance agencies, business consultants and carriers. In this role, he oversees the operations and enrollment of the business. Chris has over 30 years of dedicated experience in benefit communication and employee benefits. 

 
Rob Quell
Vice President of Broker and Special Market Development, Colonial Life

Rob is the Vice President, Broker and Special Market Development for Colonial Life.  In this role, Rob is responsible for leading an organization focused on developing and executing strategies to offer insurance products and enrollment services in partnership with brokers to their employer clients.  His team also works with Colonial Life’s largest and most complex clients to evaluate the strategic use of benefits programs to achieve their business objectives, as well as specialization in key industry segments including public sector.  Rob has previously held roles in Large Employer Sales, Enrollment Technology, IT Portfolio Management, Underwriting, and Claims.  He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Vanderbilt University and an MBA in International Business from the Darla Moore School of Business (University of South Carolina).  He is a Fellow of the Life Management Institute (FLMI) and Associate of Life and Health Claims (ALHC).

Transcript

Clare Morin:                 Welcome to HR Trends. I'm your host, Clare Morin. And today we are discussing benefits education with year-round communication. We have with us two leading experts in the field. We have Chris Bernadine, who's the current chief enrollment officer [00:00:30] of Meridio, a benefits communications software and enrollment company specializing in working with associations, insurance agencies, consultants, as well as carriers. Chris oversees the operations and enrollment of the organization and has over 30 years of dedicated experience in benefits communication and employee benefits, having worked with organizations such as [Ayon 00:00:54]. So welcome, Chris.

Christopher Ber...:         Thank you for the introduction. And I look forward to our discussion [00:01:00] today.

Clare Morin:                 We also have Rob Quell, the vice president, broker and special market development for Colonial Life. His team works with Colonial Life's largest and most complex clients to evaluate the strategic use of benefits to achieve their business objectives. So welcome Rob.

Rob Quell:                    Hi Clare. Yeah, thanks for having me today.

Clare Morin:                 So Rob, let's start with you. Could you begin by just giving us a sense of this connection between how well [00:01:30] an organization is educating employees on its benefits to overall employee satisfaction and retention levels? So right now it's June, 2021 and we are seeing sort of increased numbers of employees looking for new jobs. Retention is a real issue for employers. What does that correlation with benefits education?

Rob Quell:                    Yeah, Clare. No, I appreciate that question, and it's a topic [00:02:00] we spend a lot of time talking about. Because as you think about the current economic environment, you read articles every single day around just a very, very large unemployment rates, and yet employers are struggling to attract and retain employees to support their business. And candidly, in the insurance industry, maybe a little bit selfishly, but also more broadly, we think about financial protection products and insurance products as a massive lever to help [00:02:30] resolve that challenge that a lot of employers are facing. And you can tie it to really using your benefits offering as an employer to your employees as a strategic asset to overcome some of those challenges.

                                    So you think about surveys from third party consulting firms like Eastbridge that talk about why do employers offer benefits in the first place. And it's because employees are interested, it's because really [00:03:00] the work site today remains the primary and you could argue almost even the only mechanism to distribute financial protection products to employees. But employers are using it as a tool to attract and retain talent and save money within their company. Those tools and those strategic objectives only become true if your employees understand your benefits package, they participate in it, so they've purchased those products and [00:03:30] engage in that benefit package, and then they use it.

                                    And that becomes even increasingly more important, particularly in the recruitment and retention space, because there was a really cool study done by Governing Institute Magazine a few years ago that talked about the most important reasons why an employee chooses to work for a company and the most important reasons why they choose to stay. And the top three for recruitment are competitive salaries, competitive benefits and work-life balance. The top three for retention, benefits [00:04:00] actually jumps to number one. The number one reason why an employee who stays with an employer is because of the competitive benefits package. Number two becomes work-life balance, and salary drops all the way down to number six on the list of top 10 reasons why an employee chooses to stay with an employer.

                                    So really having a very, very strong benefits offering and a well understood benefits offering that people engage in is ultimately how you're going to get those strategic objectives. And that all comes down to communication. [00:04:30] There are tons of studies out there, whether it's with large brokerage organizations or consulting firms that talk about the fact that you can have an extremely robust benefits package, but it actually performs less successfully than a poor benefit package that's really well communicated and engaged in by that workforce. And so that all hinges on how do you educate people, how do you inform them of what's out there and make sure that they're using it. And that kind of ties [00:05:00] a lot, I think, to our theme today.

Clare Morin:                 Totally.And Chris, I would love to hear you then respond to what Rob just said and your thoughts on this.

Christopher Ber...:         Sure. I certainly agree with a lot of what Rob just said, in fact everything that Rob just said there. There's some other stats that I'll talk about a little bit. There was a global PR firm that just said the cost of poor communication today has hit over $37 billion across the world. So you look at [00:05:30] lack of communication. Rob mentioned a Watson Wyatt study that was done that a company today with very rich benefits but poorly communicated has higher turnover than a company with less rich benefits but better communicated.

                                    And the cost of turnover today. The companies we look at today, there was another study about 600 businesses across the United States. 63% of them said while recruiting an employee was very important, retaining employees is more [00:06:00] important to them today than actually the recruiting process. So while it's a job seekers market today, even though you see turnover high today, a job seekers market where people are leaving. People today, they said it on an average, one third of employees today are actually looking, whether it's casually or formally, for a new job. And companies that have very robust communication programs have seen a drastic reduction in the turnover [00:06:30] of employees today.

Clare Morin:                 It's brilliant to have you both talking about this. And we are going to get into tactical best practices around how to communicate. But before that, I wonder if we can also talk about another trend, which is this year-round approach to benefits communication and even enrollment. So traditionally of course, it's been very much centered around the fourth quarter, but maybe that was starting to change, and perhaps the pandemic accelerated that change. [00:07:00] And frankly, to an employee it's always relevant. If you have the need that comes up, your benefits become extremely irrelevant. I'm sorry, relevant. Chris, I wonder if you could speak to that. And then Rob.

Christopher Ber...:         Sure. As Rob mentioned, communication or employee understanding is one of the top real reasons why people stay with an organization today. And what we start to see, and what a lot of statistics have shown, is fourth quarter enrollment was when a typical enrollment of [00:07:30] benefits happens today. People spend more time these days looking at purchasing a car or looking at something else and they do spending on benefits. So to help with the process, a year-round communication is really the right method. We work with a lot of clients across the country. And when we look at them, is developing a strategy for a year-round communication truly helps all aspects of the business. As well [00:08:00] as for HR departments that when fourth quarter comes, those that are in the enrollment or benefit industry, everything is tried to pushed into a few week of enrollment session.

                                    So we work with some clients today and I'll give you a few tips. What we talk about when year-round communication happens is it really needs to be, as we mentioned, a year-round communication. But it needs to be simple. It needs to be short. It needs to be concise messages. And we have a certain client and [00:08:30] several clients we're starting to see to adopt this year-round strategy where during the year they develop a strategy for the whole year. And this one client that we work with actually divides it into quarters. And during the quarter, the first quarter of each year is all about their wealth. So it's about the individual. They have a section that comes out every month and the communication is all about their wealth kicking off the new year. Are you prepared? Are you taken care of, do you have the right benefits? Is your family taken [00:09:00] care of? If something was to happen to you, are you able to take care of that in the wealth section?

                                    And then they go into the second quarter and they talk about whether it's your wellness program, whether it's what your health is like for you. Are you engaged in taking care of yourself and what you do there? Then the third quarter goes into their lifestyle. Two quarters are done. It's the second half of the year, the year's half [00:09:30] over. What are you doing the second half of the year in your lifestyle to make sure that you achieve those goals throughout the year? And then typically the fourth quarter is about their benefits. But as you go through the quarters of the year, it allows you to talk about the different types of benefits.

                                    So if you're talking about wealth, as an example in quarter one, do you have proper life insurance? Do you have proper savings, or have you taken advantage of your FSA? Or with [00:10:00] a new plan, with a high deductible, if you were to go and have a serious illness and went into the hospital, do you have the money to cover your $6,000 out of pocket or $10,000 out-of-pocket? And then when you talk about your health, are you doing your wellness assessment? Are you taking care of yourself and are you going through those to make sure that your health is in good standards? And then of course your lifestyles. A lot of companies today offer many perks.

                                    And while it's great that you see more [00:10:30] companies offering discounted gym memberships or discount on your cell phone, or a lot of the carriers that you work with have tools that you can use throughout the year. And one of the suggestions I give is tap into that. Whatever your providers are or your broker, that you actually ask them, "What's available? What can I use?" Because a lot of companies have portals and things like that today that you can use. And then of course, when it comes to benefits to the end of the year, [00:11:00] making sure that they're educated and they're prepared for making that decision. A lot of us have changes throughout the year. I have two boys and what benefits do I need? What's important to me throughout the year? And rather than trying to make a decision all year on my benefits in a eight to 12 minute online presentation, I want to be better educated.

Clare Morin:                 It's just such a smart idea. It's brilliant. Rob, do you have any thoughts to [00:11:30] add to that?

Rob Quell:                    Yeah, no. I think Chris hit on a couple points really well around all of our lives are extremely dynamic. And if there's one thing that the last 18 months and the global pandemic has highlighted is that none of our lives are stagnant. People are always getting married, divorced, having children, having death of family members and loved ones. And every single time one of those major events happen within your life, [00:12:00] you do need to take a quick second and reevaluate your benefits package, your financial plan, and kind of think about how you want to adjust. And actually, from an insurance carrier perspective, we design all of our products to allow people to make changes if and when those times occur. But insurance benefits are also an interesting thing in the fact that some of them are very time-bound and time-sensitive.

                                    So Chris mentioned FSA programs. Or even [00:12:30] when you go through life event changes, there are usually periods or windows of time that you have to make those adjustments or to use some of those benefits or you miss out on an opportunity. You take wellness programs, for example. A lot of insurance benefits today include 50 or a hundred dollar wellness payments just simply for going to get a physical, which is usually covered a hundred percent by a medical plan because it's considered a proactive measure to stay healthy. But if you don't do that in that calendar year, you miss out on that [00:13:00] a hundred dollar incentive to go take care of yourself. Or think about having a new child in your family. If you don't enroll them in your medical plan, typically within the first 30 to 45 days, they become ineligible for coverage until later in the year. And obviously we all know with rising costs of healthcare and everything else, that can have a major, major strain on a family if they're not thinking about things throughout the course of the year.

                                    And then take HSAs and FSAs. There's a use [00:13:30] it or lose it element to money that you put into those programs. And we've actually seen, and I have folks on my team who have even expressed frustration before to say, "Hey, I forgot I even engaged in that program and now I've got a thousand dollars sitting out there that I've got two weeks to try to use, or that money just disappears and goes away. And gosh, I wish it would have been thinking about that throughout the course of the year." And it just highlights and emphasizes Chris's point around making sure people are thinking about things as life [00:14:00] just happens and as we all continue to grow.

Clare Morin:                 It's so true. And I know Chris actually has more incredible tips. And I'll be honest, I heard them both on a SHRM webinar at the end of May. Which is fantastic, we're going to link to it in our show description. And there's also an article really expands on Chris's best practices that he was sharing. There's a quarterly approach. But also, keep it simple is your mantra, isn't it Chris? [00:14:30] Maybe briefly you could just touch on that. But we will be linking to the webinar.

Christopher Ber...:         Sure. With our clients today we use six short tips or six ideas that they can use, as we discuss this today. One is employees need education year-round. It's not just benefits in the fourth quarter. You need to engage and communicate to your employees all year. Not just, "Hey, it's benefit time." It's now. So you need to engage or educate your employees [00:15:00] all year, which is number one. Number two, it's small, consistent communication is the best way. During open enrollment, a lot of companies send out this big benefit guide, this big benefit book, and it's overwhelming the amount of information that you're given. To send short tips, short tools, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second, but short, simple, consistent message.

                                    And again, when we create content for clients today, it needs to be.... Every [00:15:30] employee is different. So you need to look at how you're communicating. It's not that you want to put it into very... Insurance jargon. I think I used this on the SHRM webinar. That somebody today, if you ask them if they're interested in a critical illness policy they would probably say no. However, if you educated to them that, "Would you be interested in a program that provides you money to help cover your copays and deductibles if you [00:16:00] become seriously ill, and the program costs a few dollars a week?" That short, simple message is a certain, a good way to educate and communicate because it actually helps the employee.

                                    We also talk about number three in here. Not every employee learns the same way. A lot of people now send by email. Well, email would be great for a company that everybody's in front of email. We work with contractors, construction companies, home healthcare agencies, [00:16:30] and different organizations throughout the country that they're not in front of a computer. If you're on a construction site and you're a contractor, chances are, you're not reading your email. Or at the end of the day, you're not going home to read email. So a text message to them using their mobile phone, their smartphone. We call them ringless voicemail drops, where you can actually send a voicemail to every employee. Those short ways of communicating is a better way to go across it.

                                    Not only [00:17:00] is it email, is it text, but it's short newsletters. It's videos. We do a lot in videos these days, because a short video under 60 seconds is a great way to communicate a message. I read a statistic the other day that says the average individual spends eight seconds looking at something and then makes a decision whether they're going to look at it any longer. So it needs to be a catchy, short message that goes across. So [00:17:30] the next is everything should be in one location. So we see today you have benefits in one section, you might have your cell phones in another. You may have your health insurance in another location. There needs to be one site for all of your material when it comes to your benefits package. And benefits package is not just health insurance anymore. It's health insurance, it's disability insurance, it's gym memberships. It's your wellness programs. It's everything. [00:18:00] If you have one portal, one site to draw everybody to, it makes it simple and easy.

                                    Number four, and I know I've got a little long-winded in here, is people forget what they have throughout the year. I mean, educating them once a year on it, people forget. I know I forget a lot of things throughout the year, but continuing to have that message come across, whether somebody logs into an internet site in the morning, have the banners come across. It also eliminates common mistakes. People make mistakes [00:18:30] because they forget. And then there's the last and the most probably important, it keeps the employees engaged all year. I mean, there are a lot of statistics out today that shows that better engaged employees really impacts the workforce. You get more productivity, you have higher profits as an organization.

                                    For an employee, if they're engaged, retention increases, turnover reduces. So there are a lot of keys, or those six, [00:19:00] that really help that you should take a few minutes to go through them and see what you can do. I know I said this on the webinar as well, and I'll say it again today. You don't have to put all six into play in one spot. We hope that through a conversation like this, that you take one idea, one aspect of it, and put it into place. And then start to build on it from there. It shouldn't be, "Oh no, I now have to add something new to what I'm doing every day," because [00:19:30] in HR, a benefits professional is busy. But the amount of time and the cost for retaining employees and recruiting employees, by putting some of these simple keys in force will really help drive, and you'll find out that it'll be better off for you as well.

Clare Morin:                 Wonderful. Well, thank you both so much for coming on the show and having this conversation. And everyone in the audience, good luck. I mean, now is the time everyone needs those benefits. And if you have questions for us, please do get in touch. [00:20:00] And Chris, Rob, thank you both so much.

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