Reinventing benefits for younger generations | Unum

New research from LIMRA and EY shows that workplaces have reached a “generational tipping point.” Millennials and Gen Z employees now make up the majority of the workforce — and are on pace to constitute 60% by 2031.1 These younger workers (42 years old and under) have different benefit preferences from the Baby Boomers and Gen X cohorts for whom benefits have traditionally been designed, and greater needs when it comes to benefits education and enrollment. LIMRA’s Kimberly Landry joined John Stibal from Unum and Michael Stachowiak from Colonial Life to discuss how HR should react to this profound generational shift.

• A much broader view. According to Landry, LIMRA’s second annual Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker (BEAT) study shows that younger employees still want core benefits above all else.  But they also want their benefits package to include a wider variety of supplemental health, wellness, mental health and other benefits. “The benefit programs of the future need to be more customizable and provide more options for employees to pick and choose from,” says Landry. [02:02]
• More choice means more confusion. As employers offer a larger number of benefits, they will need to increase their efforts to educate younger benefit consumers, according to Stachowiak. Stibal agrees that education is important to making informed decisions because with choice, “your employer is not making the decisions for you any longer.” [04:00]
• More benefits are more important. According to the LIMRA/EY Harnessing growth and seizing opportunity: 2023 Workforce Benefits Study, employers and employees both assign a high degree of importance to a fairly long list of benefit options. To compete effectively for talent, employers need to show that their benefits portfolio contains a wide range of choices to fit employees’ differing needs. “About half of the employers in our survey told us they expect to be increasing the number of benefits that they offer in the next five years,” Landry says. [06:30]
• The biggest change since last year? Importance of leave. Employer perception of the importance of paid family and medical leave benefits jumped 26% over last year, as shown in the LIMRA/EY study. “Paid family leave sounds simple, but it’s really, really complicated for employers,” says Stibal. Between complying with multiple federal, state and local leave laws and creating a good experience for employees administering leave is a challenging issue for employers. Employers may want to outsource [A1] leave management to a carrier who can provide a good combination of technology and human support. [13:00]
• How does all this factor into enrollment? As employers offer more benefits and as employees need more education, it’s important to be mindful about how you roll out your benefits enrollment. Some best practices:

1. Spread communication out over time in a drip campaign instead of bombarding employees with an overwhelming amount of information all at once. 
2. Talk about only one or two benefits at a time, so employees can pay equal attention to all their options. 
3. Communicate more about brand-new or unfamiliar benefits. 
4. Encourage employees to start enrolling early in the enrollment window, so they have time to ask questions and make informed decisions. [27:12]

Transcript

00:00:01:14 - 00:00:04:02

Clare Morin

Today on HR Trends.

00:00:04:04 - 00:00:20:13

Kimberly Landry

Benefits programs for the future need to be more customizable, and they need to provide more options for employees, pick and choose from so that they can meet the needs that they have in different life stages and different situations.

00:00:20:14 - 00:00:49:11

Clare Morin

Welcome to HR Trends. I'm your host, Clare Morin Today we are talking about reinventing benefits for younger generations. We have a panel of benefit geeks, amazing experts from the industry. Joining us today is Kimberly Landry, associate research director for workplace Benefits Research at LIMRA and Loma. Kim, you are a huge hit with our audience and we're so excited you're back with us today.

00:00:49:12 - 00:00:51:07

Kimberly Landry

I'm happy to be here, Clare. Thank you.

00:00:51:08 - 00:01:04:10

Clare Morin

We also have John Stibal, Senior Vice President of unions, sales and client Management Organization. He's a veteran of the employee benefits industry. And John, thank you for joining us also.

00:01:04:14 - 00:01:06:14

John Stibal

Hey, thanks for inviting me. I'm glad to be here.

00:01:06:15 - 00:01:16:15

Clare Morin

Finally, our third panelist is Michael Stachowiak, Senior Vice President and head of sales at Colonial Life. Michael, thank you for joining us.

00:01:17:00 - 00:01:19:12

Michael Stachowiak

Hey, thanks, Clare. It's good to be here today with you.

00:01:19:13 - 00:01:49:04

Clare Morin

So, Kim, let's start with you. LIMRA has recently released the 2023 Beat Study Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker. You've also just released the LIMRA, an e y report Harnessing Growth and Seizing Opportunity. The 2023 Workforce Benefits Study. The big story we're seeing emerging from both these reports is what you're calling the generational tipping point. You write as though older workers are working longer.

00:01:49:05 - 00:02:02:02

Clare Morin

Millennials and Generation Z are now representing the majority of workers. And by 2031, they will comprise more than 60% of the workforce. Tell us about your insights.

00:02:02:03 - 00:02:24:04

Kimberly Landry

Yeah, so what we're seeing there is that there's a generational shift happening in the workplace. As you said, millennials and Gen Z are already make up more than half of the workforce and it will be close to 60% soon. The oldest millennials are turning 42 this year, and by 2031 they will be turning 50, which makes me die a little bit inside as a millennial myself.

00:02:24:04 - 00:02:42:02

Kimberly Landry

But, you know, but we are really looking at a workforce that is going to be dominated by millennials and Generation Z in the coming years, and that is that plans will need to adjust because there are some differences in what these younger generations look for and what they want out of an employee benefit package at a high level.

00:02:42:03 - 00:03:03:02

Kimberly Landry

What we see is that the older generation, such as the baby boomers have, they have a narrower definition of what they expect out of an employee benefits package. And they're very focused on the quote unquote, traditional benefits like medical, dental and vision coverage and retirement plans. And they care a little bit less about some of the newer or nontraditional benefits.

00:03:03:03 - 00:03:31:08

Kimberly Landry

Now, the younger generations, they still think those core benefits are very important or not. We're not seeing a reduced focus on those. But what we do see is that the younger generations are taking a much broader view of what a benefits package means to them, what they think that should be. And so they express a lot more interest in some of the more ancillary and supplemental offerings, things like supplemental health products, wellness benefits, mental health offerings and a variety of other things.

00:03:31:09 - 00:03:58:12

Kimberly Landry

So the problem is that most employee benefits packages were kind of designed years ago with the older generations in mind, and they're based on this idea that everyone needs the same things, which is really was probably never the case, but it's certainly not the case now. So the benefits programs of the future need to be more customizable and they need to provide more options for employees to pick and choose from so that they can meet the needs that they have and different life stages and different situations.

00:03:58:14 - 00:04:10:05

Clare Morin

Fascinating. And I know, Michael, you're another millennial with us. I'm here to represent Gen X. Michael, your thoughts and then John.

00:04:10:06 - 00:04:40:06

Michael Stachowiak

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And I couldn't agree with Kim more. I think the prevalence of choice inside of the marketplace as we see the emergency emergence of millennials and Gen Z into the workforce is only going to grow. And I think we see that in a lot of the liberal survey data on the recent linear survey. But what's important, I think, is the fact that most millennials and most Gen Z folks, while they want choice, they want access to answers, access to education.

00:04:40:08 - 00:05:15:14

Michael Stachowiak

And I think that along with choice comes an opportunity and really a responsive bility to provide, whether it's digital, whether it's online or whether it's over the phone or whatever media, you have to communicate benefits with choice. There can become clarity or we can create confusion. And it's important to create clarity When choice expands. And we certainly see choice and the requirement and need for choice expanding as we see millennials and Gen Z grow in our workforce.

00:05:15:15 - 00:05:17:14

Clare Morin

John, what are your thoughts?

00:05:17:15 - 00:05:41:13

John Stibal

Well, you've already claimed me as the tail end of the boomer population, so we know that already. And you're right, the evolution of benefits has been fascinating to watch. And and back in the old Wayback Machine, it was a employers told you what you got. And then we intoduced flex plans, which became a little bit of choice. And now there's just a wide variety of benefits needs.

00:05:41:13 - 00:06:01:12

John Stibal

And with multiple generations in the workforce are really important that employers are doing that, but they have to be able to do it and control costs. So you can't do it at any cost. And so making sure that offerings resonate with the employee populations are really, really important. And to Michael's point, that was really well said, Hey, it's got to be we've got to be able to educate people, communicate well to people.

00:06:01:12 - 00:06:22:14

John Stibal

So they're making informed decisions because the employer is not making the decision for you any longer. You got to be able to make that choice and build that safety net for yourself. And so really, really important. On the education communication side. So I totally agree with where the panel's going around. It's a very different benefits experience today and it will continue to evolve over time.

00:06:23:00 - 00:06:48:09

Clare Morin

Exactly. And we're going to dive in even deeper into the section you call Benefits of the Future. And so, you know, the report discusses the new expectations employees have around benefits. Do you write nontraditional offerings that would have been afterthoughts a decade ago and now central to employers value propositions, especially given today's intense competition for talent and you include these graphs, what employers think employees want and what employees want.

00:06:48:10 - 00:06:51:09

Clare Morin

Can you talk through those graphs and your findings?

00:06:51:11 - 00:07:16:05

Kimberly Landry

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So we surveyed both employees and employers as part of this research and we asked them similar sets of questions. We presented both with a long list of benefits, including insurance and non-insurance and nontraditional offerings, and we asked employers how interested they thought their employees would be in each benefit in the future. And then we asked employees directly how interested they would be in each benefits.

00:07:16:05 - 00:07:43:09

Kimberly Landry

We could compare their answers. We were also able to look at how their answers have changed in the past two years when we did similar research that we are now updating. So a few things that jump out. First of all, we see the same five benefits jump out as the most important for both groups, employees and employers. The order differ slightly, but those top five benefits are medical, dental, vision, life insurance and paid family or medical leave.

00:07:43:10 - 00:08:10:14

Kimberly Landry

After those, there's a really big cluster of benefits that are all graded very similarly in terms of importance. You know, we see little percentage point differences, but they all hang pretty close together and those ratings are all pretty high. Schools are all considered important by large portions of employees and employers. And in there are things like disability insurance, supplemental health wellness programs, mental health, financial wellness or assistance programs and so on and so on.

00:08:10:15 - 00:08:30:13

Kimberly Landry

So what this tells us is it's not that there's a small group of benefits that's that's important. There's a very large group of benefits that are important employees. Different employees want a lot of different things. And to compete effectively for talent, employers are going to have to offer more options. So, you know, kind of builds on what we said before about how, you know, choice is proliferating.

00:08:31:01 - 00:08:43:08

Kimberly Landry

Number of offerings are proliferating. Employers are really recognizing this. And about half of the employers in our survey told us that they expect to be increasing the number of benefits that they offer in the next five years.

00:08:43:09 - 00:09:04:10

Clare Morin

So that growth of offerings that increased choice. And John, one thing you said when we were looking at this graph that really leapt out to you again from, you know, 36 years with Unum, a leading disability insurance provider, and you were really noticing how short term disability was coming down quite low on that graph. Right. And you were any thoughts you wanted to share around that?

00:09:04:11 - 00:09:24:08

John Stibal

Well, it starts with it breaks my heart. I mean, I grew up in the disability business, right? Actually, I come from a really fundamental belief that, hey, particularly young in your career, early in your career, your ability to earn an income is your greatest asset. And so that's why I have that safety net of disability. Income protection is really, really important.

00:09:24:08 - 00:09:43:12

John Stibal

So if for some reason something happens, a sickness, an accident that limits you from being able to do that for a period of time, you still have income to be able to help pay for the mortgage, pay for living expenses, pay for your college tuition payments. Those are all those types of things. And so protecting your income really, really important.

00:09:43:12 - 00:10:07:13

John Stibal

And it's been a very deep ingrained principle to me for a long, long time. So that's it. I kind of use the term the Go Fund Me strategy is a strategy, but it's not really good for the long term. And so making sure you've got a good financial net of protection around paid family leave, short term disability and long term disability allows you to pay for all those other things that you need and other obligations you may have in life.

00:10:07:13 - 00:10:25:10

John Stibal

And so I guess maybe that is not top of mind with folks sometimes. And so that gets back to earlier discussion around education and communication and make sure people understand where their risks lie and what they need to do to shore up those risks.

00:10:25:11 - 00:10:29:09

Clare Morin

That's great. And Michael, any thoughts from you on these graphs?

00:10:29:11 - 00:10:56:05

Michael Stachowiak

Yeah, I would just agree with what John said. I think, you know, go fund me is a strategy, but it's not an effective one. I mean, if you think about that dynamic and you think about the rise of gig work or more appropriately termed as millennials out there is the side hustle, right? I think a lot of millennials or a lot of Gen Z that have some gig work or a side hustle might think to themselves, You know, my primary source of income could be easily replaced if I had to do that.

00:10:56:05 - 00:11:17:07

Michael Stachowiak

And I think there's the really is is that they still need to protect their primary source of income and that's, I think, where education really comes in. I also notice that the the rise of the importance of so many benefits is really quite staggering when you look at these graphs. I can't remember what year it was, but it was a solid 15 years ago.

00:11:17:07 - 00:11:33:10

Michael Stachowiak

The Kaiser Family Foundation put out a similar survey in terms of the prevalence of benefits that employees want and need or say they want and need at the workplace. And that graph almost went from Mike. Here's what everyone says they want all the way down to like 2% of people and it was on the 10th thing or the 11th item.

00:11:33:12 - 00:11:49:01

Michael Stachowiak

So as you get to the 11th or 12th benefit, it's like nobody really answered that. That's important. And what stands out for me on these graphs is the sheer number of answers. And as you look at the survey data itself and as your eyes move to the right hand side of the page, you see the rise in percentage points.

00:11:49:01 - 00:12:09:03

Michael Stachowiak

And people who said that was important over just last year, that's just 12 months ago. Some of those rises are 20, 30%, 15, 10, 5% rise in a number of employees and employers who said those benefits were important. So now you don't have a graph that starts with really high need all the way down to that's kind of important.

00:12:09:04 - 00:12:40:12

Michael Stachowiak

You almost have a block graph where they're saying these 15 things are are people are hitting it 30, 40, 50, 60% of the time in terms of the importance and like what John said about the importance of education, whether it's digital, whether it's old fashioned with need any help to hip or whether it's a balance of be there when people call all on the phone to answer questions in a traditional manner using technology as we face towards the future.

00:12:40:13 - 00:12:56:01

Michael Stachowiak

Choosing a one size fits all benefit education program just isn't going to be effective moving forward because of the choice that people are demanding in the marketplace, both from an employer and from an employee perspective. As we look at the survey.

00:12:56:02 - 00:13:14:07

Clare Morin

Such a good point, and I want to go to benefits education enrollment in a little bit. But first, just to pick up on something you said, Michael, Kim in the study, what employers think employers want the biggest increase, 26% increase over the past year and PFML paid family medical leave is jumped all the way to the top of the graph.

00:13:14:08 - 00:13:17:05

Clare Morin

Kim, can you unpack what's happening here?

00:13:17:06 - 00:13:33:10

Kimberly Landry

Yeah, so a few things are happening here. First of all, as you're well aware, paid family and medical leave has become a very hot topic in our country in recent years. You know, we're one of the only developed countries that doesn't have a national, national paid leave program. But a lot of states have been jumping in and creating their own.

00:13:33:10 - 00:13:58:05

Kimberly Landry

I think we're at about 16 states now, give or take, that are somewhere in that process. So there's very high demand for this and we see that in our employee research. The interest from the employee perspective, it's one of the benefits that they say is most important to them, and that has held pretty steady from our research Two years ago now, the interest from the employer perspective jumped 26 percentage points, as you said.

00:13:58:06 - 00:14:23:09

Kimberly Landry

And part of that story is that employer interest in almost all benefits has jumped considerably from a few years ago. A lot of that interest that we see that growth is coming from smaller employers, those with fewer than 100 employees. And you think about where they're coming from. Two years ago, small employers were still coping with the fallout from the pandemic and numerous HR headaches that came along with that.

00:14:23:10 - 00:14:43:12

Kimberly Landry

So benefits it's not that they didn't think they were important, but benefits in making changes to benefit packages was not as high on their list of strategic priorities as it might have otherwise been because there was so much else they were dealing with as forward now to 2023 and employers coping with the great resignation and an extremely tight labor market.

00:14:43:14 - 00:15:04:10

Kimberly Landry

And so now benefits are very much at the top of our radar as a recruitment and retention tool. So what we're hearing from employers and especially small employers is that they're having so much trouble recruiting people and keeping the people that they have. They're terrified of losing good employees. And so they're looking for ways, new ways to retain them by enhancing their benefits.

00:15:04:11 - 00:15:20:00

Kimberly Landry

And I do want to note, even though, you know, as I said, employer interest in benefits is in some ways it's rising across the board. But that growth rate for FMLA was the highest of all of them that we saw. And probably because it is so top of mind for employees.

00:15:20:01 - 00:15:32:05

Clare Morin

Right. And those that focus kind of on balanced lives, family time and so on. John, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. Having been in this leave space, as obviously the union's a leader. Thoughts on this?

00:15:32:06 - 00:16:01:12

John Stibal

Yeah, well, Kim is right. It's top of mind with everybody and it's actually sounds simple, right? Paid family leave. That sounds simple. It is really, really complicated for an employer. You've got federal protections. You have state protections, some local protections for for jobs and income. And so being able to administer that well, being able to deliver a benefits experience to an employee and in a really modern way is really, really important to be able to do it successfully.

00:16:01:12 - 00:16:21:04

John Stibal

Because you can have two people on leave in some one person really enjoy the experience, won't really be frustrated by the experience. So we're spending a lot of time thinking about, Hey, how do you make leave more simple, simple for the employee to understand and execute on, and then providing good quality capabilities for employers to be able to take that off their plate.

00:16:21:04 - 00:16:41:03

John Stibal

And so we are spent a lot of time on that, and it's kind of a tech first capability so that, hey, you can do it on your phone, you can file a leave, you can research a lead, you can figure out, hey, what's what's paid, what's not paid, hey, what's protected, what's not protected, and and then ultimately executed that way.

00:16:41:05 - 00:17:01:13

John Stibal

Or if you want to talk to a person, you want to talk it through with a specialist, you can do that as well. So we're spend a lot of time. That's a lot of money doing that. To Kim's point, it's it's really top of mind with employers. It's top of mind with employees. And we're just trying to get it right so that it's a great experience for both of those constituencies.

00:17:01:14 - 00:17:17:03

Clare Morin

And just if I could quickly, Michael, that what Kim was saying about the smaller employees, because cleaner lives obviously doing a lot of these full time benefits and so on and serving that under 100 employee base, any thoughts there on just the rise of the need for benefits?

00:17:17:04 - 00:17:38:00

Michael Stachowiak

Yeah, the rise, the need for benefits isn't going to stop. Even in the small end of the market, it might not be as prevalent and as loud as in the large end of the market, but I think it's just as needed and just as requested. You know, if you have 15 employees out of 30 asking for something, that's pretty important and most employers are going to deliver on that.

00:17:38:02 - 00:17:55:05

Michael Stachowiak

If you have 15 out of 100 that are asking for something, you're still going to deliver on that. And I think in the top end of the market, you have hundreds of employees out of thousands asking for things. You're going to deliver on that as well. And I think leave is no different. And so how we think about leave is going to change.

00:17:55:05 - 00:18:07:11

Michael Stachowiak

And I think how we lean on carriers to support the need here from a benefits standpoint and from a services standpoint is going to change. And it's great to see Unum out front on this.

00:18:07:12 - 00:18:32:10

Clare Morin

I'd love to talk also generational differences. So in the e y report, there's a wheel of wellness. Kim So you share how we're moving into a holistic wellness revolution. That sounds great and I'd like to be involved. We all would. So you can you first explain how you define the five dimensions of holistic wellness and then how they might differ across generations.

00:18:32:11 - 00:18:51:11

Kimberly Landry

Yeah. So when you get right down to it, wellness is the whole point of any employee benefit program. This is a way of taking care of employees and providing the support that they need and that they're asking for it to help them live their best lives, both on the job and off the job. And so employers we see are now starting to look at wellness more holistically.

00:18:51:12 - 00:19:16:12

Kimberly Landry

LIMRA E Y created this framework called the Wheel of Wellness, and it looks at wellness in five dimensions. Those dimensions are physical, mental, financial, professional and societal wellness and the various types of employees, various types of employee benefits all address one or more of these dimensions. So this framework, we think, can help employers make sure that their offerings are meeting employee needs in all five of these areas.

00:19:16:13 - 00:19:36:05

Kimberly Landry

What we did is we asked employees to divide up 100 points across these five dimensions to indicate how how important each one is relative to the others. And that let us compare the priorities of different generations and different types of employees. So I'll walk you through some of our high level differences that we saw. Not everything was different.

00:19:36:06 - 00:20:04:14

Kimberly Landry

Professional wellness. That would be things like career development and training. That was a similar priority for employees of all ages. Financial wellness. Also as a general concept, all generation generation saw that it was pretty similar in terms of importance, although we think there the underlying needs are probably different for younger workers. Financial Wellness, this might mean things like student loan assistance, while older workers might be thinking more about life and disability coverage or retirement savings.

00:20:04:15 - 00:20:37:03

Kimberly Landry

But the same need but different dimensions of it societal wellness. So that is things like volunteer opportunities, opportunities to get back to the community could be like charitable donation matching. Those are slightly more important to younger workers. It's not a dramatic difference, but we are seeing that increase as you move down through the generations and the two biggest differences we saw were in physical wellness, which becomes progressively more important as employees get older, and mental wellness, which has the opposite pattern.

00:20:37:03 - 00:20:55:04

Kimberly Landry

Younger workers are much more likely to view that as a high priority. And we think mental health benefits in particular are going to be a key area for employers to strengthen as the younger generations make up a larger and larger share of their workforce, because that's something that a lot of traditional benefits didn't address all that well all the time.

00:20:55:05 - 00:20:59:04

Clare Morin

I love your thoughts, John. Michael, maybe John, starting with you.

00:20:59:05 - 00:21:22:09

John Stibal

Yeah, well, we're seeing it in our business, too. We've done more with behavioral health and we would not have had a behavioral offering, you know, five, ten years ago. And we started to venture into that area and seen really good response from employers who are looking for ways to supplement what they're doing at the workplace. And so we're seeing it in a big way.

00:21:22:09 - 00:21:48:06

John Stibal

You think about how that has changed? I think the pandemic was a big I'll call it catalyst for for more recognition of behavioral health and bringing that to the forefront and ultimately, we need to address it with with products and services for employers and their employees to be able to meet that need. And I know we're leaning into that a little bit as a company and really like where we're headed.

00:21:48:08 - 00:21:51:05

Clare Morin

It's wonderful. Michael, any thoughts from you?

00:21:51:06 - 00:22:29:04

Michael Stachowiak

Yeah, I really like what you said earlier about the differentiation between exactly what that means. So an employee group might see financial wellness as very important and that would be saving for the future versus, hey, how do I retire? I'm kind of at the end of my runway here if you're maybe a baby boomer. And I think that paying close attention to this is really important, not just from a benefit communication and education standpoint, but even down to how we structure our products, how we show up for our customers and the solutions we deliver, like the behavioral health solution that John just mentioned, I know a lot of our customers are very interested in that

00:22:29:04 - 00:22:56:05

Michael Stachowiak

as well. We look forward to meeting those needs and i think it's important for advisors, HR Managers, employers, brokers and carriers to be thinking this way as they put things out into the marketplace because ultimately what delivers the most value for employers and employees are things that are valued. And right here, these different generations are telling us exactly what they value.

00:22:56:06 - 00:23:19:01

Clare Morin

So true and and you know, Kim in the report and as Michael actually touched on earlier, the need for robust education and communication, if we have this much choice, are we expecting people to know what to choose and so on. Before we get to you, Kim, Michael, when you looked at the graph, you made this really good point.

00:23:19:04 - 00:23:26:04

Clare Morin

When you have more options, you have more questions and you talk a little bit to that education angle here.

00:23:26:05 - 00:23:54:12

Michael Stachowiak

Yes, I've seen in other webinars, I think Sherm did a webinar where, you know, it was kind of like say one say no to a one size fits all benefit communication education program. And I love that because there are so many more options today than there were yesterday with how we connect and how we communicate the value of benefits to really put the employer offering in the best light for the employees and not necessarily to sell things, but to help employees understand what their options are so they can make an educated choice.

00:23:54:13 - 00:24:22:03

Michael Stachowiak

And I'll give you an example. Well, we still see a huge need and a significant portion of our benefits every year are enrolled or supported in terms of how the employees make their choice for the quality of life offerings. How those enroll or supported choices are being made are completely different than they have been in the past. For instance, we see a significant rise in telephonic in roller assisted enrollments.

00:24:22:04 - 00:24:52:08

Michael Stachowiak

We see significant rise in screen shared or video based enrollment assisted enrollments. We still have a lot of employers who like a presence out of the workplace so people can ask questions. But the need to use technology and people to help folks make choices, especially in this the end of the marketplace, where that is the workplace culture. The employers want to make sure that employees have choice and can speak to somebody.

00:24:52:09 - 00:25:01:08

Michael Stachowiak

It's important to think outside of the box on what education and communication could look like as we pair people with technology.

00:25:01:09 - 00:25:09:04

Clare Morin

Is such a good point. And Kim, I'd love you to tell us what's the data saying about how employees prefer to be communicated with.

00:25:09:05 - 00:25:33:12

Kimberly Landry

Yeah. So in our beat survey this year, we did a deep dive into benefits communication and we took employees through a series of questions. We first asked them, all right, what we, what resources were made available to you to help you learn about benefits during your most recent enrollment period, And then which of those resources they which of those resources they actually used and then which of those resources, what they thought were the most helpful to them.

00:25:33:12 - 00:25:54:02

Kimberly Landry

So we kind of drilled down and they help them to help them help them. This data was very interesting. 2 of the top 5 most helpful resources were digital approaches. So those were online benefits, portals and mobile apps. And that aligns a lot with what we've been saying about how a high quality digital experience is really becoming table stakes.

00:25:54:02 - 00:26:21:15

Kimberly Landry

Now in the benefits space. Digital communication is very convenient to employees, especially now as some companies are moving to remote and hybrid models where people are dispersed and employees have very high expectations for the quality of digital tools because of their experience in other industries. So who are the top five? Most helpful were digital. What was really surprising, though, was that the other three top five most helpful resources were all in-person approaches.

00:26:22:00 - 00:26:46:11

Kimberly Landry

So those were in-person one on one meetings, in-person group meetings and in-person benefit fairs. And by the way, we also had virtual versions of all of those things on our list. And people like those, too. But they were ranked farther down. They weren't viewed as as helpful as when it was face to face. So even as our industry moves to digital communication and embraces that it's important not to lose sight of the human component.

00:26:46:12 - 00:27:09:01

Kimberly Landry

You know, some employees still really want to talk to a real person, especially when they have questions and personal interactions, really provide a unique opportunity to explain the benefits and the level of detail that employees probably aren't going to want to engage with in a digital space, especially if it's like a self-serve digital environment. So, you know, to echo what Michael said, it's not in-person or digital.

00:27:09:01 - 00:27:11:04

Kimberly Landry

It really should people.

00:27:11:05 - 00:27:31:05

Clare Morin

Wonderful. And as we close out this wonderful discussion, we're entering enrollment season. So maybe let's end with some best practices for employers to consider as they move into an employment season. So him starting with you, how would you just crystallize it down to some key best practices?

00:27:31:07 - 00:27:51:04

Kimberly Landry

Yeah, so I mean, there's a lot of things that they can do. But one thing that we've at in number one thing we've been talking about a lot this year from what we've been seeing in the research, is improving education and the need to kind of think about tripping out benefits, communication a little more slowly rather than bombarding employees with everything all at once.

00:27:51:05 - 00:28:10:05

Kimberly Landry

And the concept that decision fatigue from behavioral economics really comes into play here. We did some research on behavioral economics earlier this year, and the research shows that employees pay more attention and they engage more with the first benefits they see and then they're interested in their engagement kind of starts to decline as they move through the enrollment process.

00:28:10:07 - 00:28:36:04

Kimberly Landry

Those can be very detrimental to voluntary benefits, which are very often kind of at the end of that list that employers are going through. You know, they start with medical and dental and then they go to life and maybe the EAP. But, you know, the kind of the more obscure benefits and especially like the ones that they're being asked to pay for tend to be at the end of that list by the time employees get there, they're often not paying that much attention anymore.

00:28:36:05 - 00:29:09:10

Kimberly Landry

Unfortunately, those tend to be the products and employees are the least familiar with already and they really need the most education about. So our recommendation is that employers need to do more pre communication to employees, especially about you benefits or offerings that employees might not know what they are. Think about something like a critical illness product or a hospital gown that they plan and maybe try to communicate those benefits at one or two at a time instead of expecting employees to absorb everything about the whole benefits package all at once, which just really doesn't set them up to make great choices.

00:29:09:10 - 00:29:18:12

Kimberly Landry

You know, it's it's too much to ask of most people, but even people that are benefits nerds like us, you know, even we get tired sometimes.

00:29:18:13 - 00:29:23:09

Clare Morin

Wonderful. Michael anything you share best practices?

00:29:23:11 - 00:29:55:06

Michael Stachowiak

Yeah. I would just add that communicating early is probably really important as well, including the frequency of communication and that drip approach that I mentioned earlier. You know, I know most companies have that 30, 60, 90 day open enrollment window. And, you know, we've had some great companies that have really just knocked enrollment out of the park with really communicating early enrollment, you know, and letting employees know that you know, you don't have to enroll in your benefits in the last five days of the 60 day window.

00:29:55:08 - 00:30:26:08

Michael Stachowiak

It's okay to poke around and get this done early. And, you know, given some kudos and some congratulations to those employees who do get this done early in the front half of that open enrollment period. You know, one of the things that we saw on the rack enrollment nominations where some companies from across the U.S. were nominated for companies who really rocked their open enrollment is we saw really great time bound and spread out communication and drip communication like Kim just mentioned.

00:30:26:10 - 00:30:48:03

Michael Stachowiak

And we saw companies really making a good effort to communicate and educate with their employees as to the offerings that are being made available early in the benefit open enrollment process and putting an emphasis on the front end of that process and rallying their employees towards that. Of course, you're always going to have the population of employees that take a great look in the last 48 hours of open enrollment.

00:30:48:04 - 00:30:53:12

Michael Stachowiak

But why not capture more of the attention of the workforce earlier in the open enrollment window?

00:30:53:13 - 00:31:05:07

Clare Morin

It's wonderful. And John, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And I'm just thinking about Gen Z. They're so financially fragile, actually. Right. And the student loans and this, that and just any thoughts there around enrollment in education.

00:31:05:08 - 00:31:28:14

John Stibal

Yeah. So certainly employers have responsibilities on delivering enrollment education but do your own research, build your own safety net A Google it and the boomer says Google it. How about that? So because to me, it's a little bit around understanding where your risks lie and then you're trying to build a safety net around that through your enrollment. And all these are connected.

00:31:29:00 - 00:31:48:03

John Stibal

Your health insurance is connected to your critical illness, which is connected to your hospital indemnity program, which is connected to your disability program. And so make sure you understand how those work. Don't overbuy. But by the same token, just build a good, solid safety net that works for you and your situation and and that will change over time.

00:31:48:03 - 00:32:13:06

John Stibal

So be prepared to, over time, take down life insurance, bring up other items, bring up retirement savings. You know, those types of things as you're building that because you're building for the future and also building for the present. And so having both of those views as you're working through your enrollment. And I would just say as you have more and more choice, you have more and more responsibility to make those great choices.

00:32:13:06 - 00:32:15:08

John Stibal

So do your research.

00:32:15:09 - 00:32:29:09

Clare Morin

Wonderful. Well, thank you all so much for this. As Kim said, benefit nerd geek out panel. We hope this message goes far and wide. And Kim, thank you so much for your time. And Michael and John, thank you so much for swinging by.

00:32:29:09 - 00:32:31:11

John Stibal

I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

00:32:31:12 - 00:32:32:08

Kimberly Landry

Thank you.

00:32:32:10 - 00:32:34:09

Michael Stachowiak

Thanks for having me.

00:32:34:10 - 00:33:07:14

Clare Morin

Thank you so much for listening. For more conversations around benefits strategies, head to Unum.com/HR-Trends. You can also visit coloniallife.com/ERC ,that's capital E, R, C, it's the Employer Resource Center. And you're going to find a lot of good stuff there. Finally, don't forget to subscribe to HD trends on your favorite podcast app.

00:33:07:15 - 00:33:13:14

Clare Morin

Unum is a registered trademark and marketing brand of Unum Group and its insuring subsidiary’s.