'Tis open enrollment season. That time of year HR and their plan providers have been planning for since last open enrollment, and like many of us who have ever had to host a holiday gathering, are up to their ears in chaos, often just hoping they make it through in one piece.
The past couple of years have been particularly difficult. HR has had to communicate unpopular changes in their employee benefits such as reduced or eliminated matches, frozen pensions–if they still have one–and higher health care costs.
HR is busy trying to put out the fires started by confusion and disgruntled employees, and amidst it all, are often missing opportunities to gain more participation in their benefits plans. This may sound crazy to those seeing worse participation, but we've seen employers do it by helping their employees better understand how to use their benefits.
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Take Annette Grabow, manager of retirement benefits at M.A. Mortenson Company. She has been able to get 92 percent of her workforce participating in their retirement plan when most plans are losing participants. She's also been able to get an average deferral rate of 7.6 percent in an industry where deferral rates are typically well below the national average of 5.5 percent.
How did Grabow do it? If you look at the benefits from her employees' perspective, it turns out her success can be boiled down to a formula any company can use. Grabow developed a highly successful benefits planning program by doing these things:
- She conducted both formal and informal assessments to determine her employees' benefits education needs. Grabow made sure to offer information and education on benefits from a financial perspective that matched what was important to her workforce.
- She put together a strong team of third party educators to teach her employees the importance of participating in the company's retirement plan as well as gave them general financial guidance in order to make healthier financial decisions, enabling them to participate more. Grabow also realized that in running her financial education program, employees were more apt to make a positive change to managing their finances and retirement participation increased.
- She developed fun and engaging benefits planning campaigns each year with an annual theme that captured employees' imaginations and made them active participants in their own learning. Last year she used a "back to school" theme to highlight the fact that most of us never learned basic money management and financial planning skills in school. Grabow went wild with this theme using lunchboxes and school supplies for participants, promoting awareness of saving for retirement. This year the theme is "Get all Your Ducks in A Row" using rubber duckies for all employees to drive the point home. This approach has been a big hit with employees, keeping their benefits top of mind even in the midst of hectic schedules and a very dynamic work environment.
Grabow's philosophy can be applied at any company and following her tips can turn open enrollment season from one of nightmares to a season of opportunity. Help your clients increase plan participation by looking at benefits from their employees' perspective and not only will you see an increase in participation and deferral rates, you'll be helping your clients and their employees make better decisions about their benefits.
Read a Q & A with Annette on her program here.
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