Enrollment: Employers and Employees Not Eye-to-Eye

How do employees want to enroll for employee benefits? One would reasonably think that employees’ views on that would be the ones that control. But a recent study suggests that not all employers are in sync with their employees on what seems like it should be a no-brainer.

It can take a lot of effort to prepare, offer and administer an employee benefits plan. Not that the effort isn’t worthwhile, of course, and for a variety of reasons. But before employees can avail themselves of those offerings, they have to enroll. And a recent LIMRA report says that employers are guessing — incorrectly — about just how that can best be accomplished.

Here’s a look at the disconnect on how employees want to enroll:

One-on-One Meetings
Employers: 13% think employees prefer
Reality: 6% of employees prefer

Paper Forms
Employers: 27% think employers prefer
Reality: choice of 13% of employees

Computer-based Enrollment
Employers: 38% think employers prefer
Reality: 68% of employees prefer

LIMRA concludes that the disparities between employers’ ideas on employees’ preferences regarding enrollment hurts how employees perceive their employers. It points out that the employees it surveyed said that employers still using paper forms for benefits enrollment were “stuck in the past” and “out of touch with today’s technology.”