Make benefits easy to use with smart systems integration

• Key insight: Discover how systems integration drives benefits utilization beyond personalized communications.
• What's at stake: Poor integration risks low utilization, administrative inefficiencies, and missed employee engagement.
• Supporting data: 65% of organizations now prioritize increasing systems integration, per Guardian survey.
  Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Personalized communication is a great way to let employees know what benefits they might need, but when it comes to engagement and utilization, systems integration — connecting access to tech-driven benefits programs to drive ease of use — is benefit leaders' bread and butter. 

Sixty-five percent of organizations say increasing systems integration is now a high priority, according to a survey by Guardian, an insurance provider for businesses and individuals. "Given the high-tech environment we're in, employers want to have digital-forward solutions for their employees," says Melissa Rothchild, the company's chief marketing officer, group benefits. 

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Guardian developed its own version of this for members with its GuardianWell platform, a self-service solution where they can access their employer wellness benefits along with related educational content on well-being, family and community support topics. Whether employees start by looking at resources for a specific issue or their offerings details, they'll find the two intertwined for better understanding and quick participation. 

"[There is a] range of online resources for employees when they need them throughout the year, and then the benefits that they have are individualized on that hub," Rothchild says. "So if they're reading an article on how to talk to an aging parent about the need for home health aid, for example, there'd be a link to our caregiving benefit."  

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Benefit leaders can use this strategy to raise awareness about all the offerings that are connected to an employee's unique needs. For instance, if someone is on a high deductible health plan, a list of supplemental health and wellness benefits that fill coverage gaps can be offered alongside. Or for groups like working parents, it is helpful to steer them toward dependent offerings they may otherwise overlook, suggests Rothchild.        

"For HR folks, this might be very natural, but employees need us to connect the dots," she says. "You have child-age dependents — let me give you the whole overview of all the benefits that are relevant for them, whether it's their early oral health, their vision, or mental health benefits. Packaging and framing things in that way is key to getting utilization and appreciation of benefits up."

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A better setup for benefit leaders

Systems integration practices can make benefit leaders' lives easier as well. One example is the ability to link their company's insurance carrier to their benefit technology platforms, Rothchild says. 

Guardian uses an application programming interface, which helps different software programs talk to each other and work together. Its information is connected to more than 20 other vendors, including ADP and Workday Wellness, giving benefit leaders access to real-time, collective data and analytics about employee policy changes, approvals and utilization. This in turn allows them to provide better service to their members.  

"Those connections are a real time saver, providing insights about eligibility, evidence of insurability, and overall benefits usage. That is definitely an area of importance to employers," she says.

This is the second piece in a series featuring advice from Guardian insurance company's new Benefits Playbook. Read part one on how to create a "benefits story" for employees.