Things have changed.
Health care costs have turned benefits from HMOs to consumer driven health care. Pensions have long been a thing of the past and the process has shifted onto the consumer and onto benefit managers.
According to Jennifer Benz, chief strategist and founder of Benz Communications, this also changes the role that benefit managers play.
"You're now responsible for getting them to use those benefits," she said last week at the 24th Annual Benefits Forum and Expo in Dallas, Texas. Twenty-five percent of adults do not exercise, which makes sense that one-third of adults are obese and one-sixth of children are obese, adding $150 billion in medical costs, cited Benz. Benefits managers are tasked to educate employees and at the same time, "You're doing this with fewer resources, your team might be a third of the size that it once was and your budgets have been slashed."
Now that the third peg of financial success, government support, isn't expected to deliver Social Security for Millenials, more weight is placed on the employer.
"What if we could help all of these people live better lives? It might sound like a pipe dream, but we have to do a better job in taking care of ourselves physically and financially," she said. Because of this added power, 75% of employees look to employers for health information and 76% think those employers can be trusted.
"Benefit managers have an amazing opportunity to help solve some of our country’s biggest problems," she said. To help employees become active participants in their benefits, employers have to make it simpler for them, which may be easier than one might think. "Just like you, they're really busy; their [benefits are] important, but in the same way flossing is important. You know the world won't end if you don't do it, so you put it off,” she added.
She proposed three things HR managers and employers can do to help their employees understand their benefits:
1. Put your benefits information online, outside your firewall.
"If it's behind a password that was long forgotten or it's on a site that's hard to navigate," then most employees won’t access it as often as they need to, she said.
78% of adults in the U.S. use Internet and mobile devices, and that number is growing faster than anyone expected. Seventy-five percent of people want their benefits on the Internet, while 66% baby boomers say the same. When you have your benefits on the internet, you have one place to put all the information.
Benz pointed to Toys R Us as an example that launched a bilingual website in 2010 that included a hub for all benefits, video and a blog, supported by sending print materials, such as post cards, to employees’ homes and placing posters in break rooms at stores
"When you have a website, you can make things funny, you can make them quirky and the possibilities are endless. It's the most important investment you can make in your benefits because 30% of compensation spending comes from benefits," she said.
2. Talk to employees year-round. Use social media to accomplish this.
"[Social media] still has a little bit of a bad rap; people think of it is as a tool that teenagers use or [remember] the one guy that said something on a blog and got fired, but its cost effective and it works," Benz advocated.
AARP has a website along with a Twitter handle, Facebook page and a blog, whose target audience is over 50, so that misconception that the older generation won't use it is out the door.
"Your company probably already uses it, [so] there is no reason you can't do it with benefits," she said. Frame it like, "a conversation with the benefits team. If you don't like the sound of a blog, tell them that it's a news and updates section," she suggested.
3. Use existing resources to promote benefits.
She pointed to several public health services that could be utilized, such as Text4Baby, for expecting and new moms run by the Department of Health and Human Services.
"When employees are dissatisfied, only 25% are loyal to their employer. When they're satisfied, 71% are loyal. It's easy to dismiss that and say that in this economy, they're just lucky to have a job, but those levels are something no company can afford. Benefits cannot be an additional disengagement factor," she said.
For more information, go to:
