Communication Best Practices

Communication with employees about benefits is always critical. And now there’s an added wrinkle—the pandemic. It’s changed the rulebook, at least in some ways, and a recent blog entry offers suggestions on communicating in this upended environment.

 

In “How to Communicate Employee Benefits in Uncertain Times,” a column by BenefitsPRO’s Emily Payne published on Voya Financial’s Voya Insights blog, Payne writes that one of the results of having to respond to current events while still fulfilling day-to-day operations is that employers are evaluating and assessing benefits programs. And all that is even more complicated, she notes, since “now more than ever, employees are looking to employers for benefits information, options, and guidance.”

Those operations include communicating about employee benefits, as well as preparing for and conducting open enrollment. Payne suggests keeping the following in mind and considering the following steps.

 

 

Payne advocates making sure that content is phrased and presented in ways employees will readily understand and act on. That includes creating a plan that includes a year-round calendar that includes reminders about benefits. It also means using a variety of means of communication that reaches employees who work remotely as well as those who work at the employer’s facility but who are socially distancing. For example:

 

intranet portals email podcasts webinars blog posts

texts mobile apps social media collaboration tools video calls “ask the expert” calls “stand up” meetings before shifts

 

Payne cautions that it is important to remember that employees may be working in a variety of locations and environments, and with the restrictions entailed in social distancing, which necessitates an array of methods of reaching them. She stresses the importance of remembering that some employees may:

 

These employees are among those who provide a reminder the electronic means of communicating are not always appropriate nor effective in all cases and circumstances. These are among the employees who would be well-served by printed materials concerning benefits, Payne suggests.

 

 

Payne argues for making employee communications about benefits a priority throughout the year, not just at enrollment. For instance, she suggests, during the rest of the year:

 

Instituting communications throughout the year can “optimize each employee's understanding of the benefits offered,” Payne argues, and increase employee satisfaction as well.