Tip of the Day: Bridge the benefits chasm (yes, now)

I'm a bit puzzled by the latest survey results from Colonial Life, and I'm hoping you pros can help me out.

The insurer finds that employers overwhelmingly believe it is for employees to understand and appreciate their benefits -- fully 92% of pros surveyed say it's very important to their business. Okay, that's great.

Further, nearly 90% of employers think having one-to-one meetings between a benefits counselor and each employee would significantly improve their employees’ understanding of their benefits. Even better.

This is where respondents lost me, though. Less than 19% of employers think their employees have a very good understanding of their benefits, and about 5% think their employees know nothing at all. Huh?!

Let's recap. Employers say that benefits understanding is imperative and even have identified a way to increase that understanding. So, they've ID'd an issue that's essential to business success and how to proactively address that issue. But ... it's still a huge issue? How on earth does that make any sense?

When people don't fully understand something -- ahem, like benefits -- they tend to select the option that they are most familiar with or is least complicated, even if that option is not what's best for them. It's why, with all of the scads of ice cream flavors out there, vanilla is still the most popular.

Don't let your employees default to vanilla. If you know that benefits counselors or personalized communications or dancing clowns will help them understand their benefits better, then get to it. It doesn't do your workers -- or your business -- one bit of good if Colonial Life are the only ones that get the benefit of that information.

“These findings reinforce what employers have been telling us for a while and validate last year’s survey findings,” says Gilligan. “Employers recognize that employee benefits have a profound impact on morale and job satisfaction. However, they don’t have the resources or time to effectively educate employees about their benefits.  Making benefits communication a strategic business priority is a real challenge.”