Enrollment's arguably your biggest time of year. For human resources, it's your time to shine. There's no greater chance for you to come out as the employee's champ and your employer's most valuable player.
It's playoff time, opening night and Super Bowl Sunday all in one.
So why do so many employers sit back and let enrollments just kind of happen? According to new HighRoads survey, a whopping 71 percent of U.S. employers conduct passive enrollments, rather than going with an active one.
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Sure, passive enrollments are easier, ensure better turnout and undoubtedly requires less from you.
But I think a real opportunity is missed here. While two-thirds of employers reach out to their work force through snail mail, e-mail and face-to face communications, there's still so much more we could do to engage employees and empower them to take control of their own benefits destinies.
There a wealth of strategies we leave on the table by just letting a passive enrollment taking care of itself. The most important of which is active, exhaustive communication, whether it's on paper, e-mail or even pursuing social media alternatives. If ever there's a time to think outside the box at the office, it's enrollment season.
On the flip side, there's good news in this survey, which also reveals 73 percent of employers conduct electronic enrollments, while only 13 percent rely on paper exclusively. So, we're getting there.
Even better, most employers allow plenty of calendar real estate for the time-consuming process that is open enrollment, with 59 percent of them starting three-to-seven months out while 41 percent start planning up to a year out.
So where do you stand? And what kind of strategies have you tried? What works? What doesn't? And where do we go from here?
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