Fixing employee engagement with AI

Driven by robots and fueled by artificial intelligence, the consumer experience evolves on a daily basis. Although some express their fears about data mining and the loss of privacy—“How do they know what I want?”—increasingly, consumers want to be offered something they care about, something that reflects their unique personality, something that customizes the consuming experience.

This desire for customization crosses all generational boundaries. And most of these consumers are employees, as well. For that reason, employees expect a customized workplace experience that includes a menu of benefits options and ease of enrollment in a plan. They want to be able to enroll independently and to know they have chosen the best plan for themselves and their family.

Related: Customizing voluntary benefits goes beyond the generations

But most aren’t experiencing this. When enrollment time rolls around, they are confronted with a single, one-size-fits-all process that is years behind anything they encounter as consumers. The result? Engagement remains discouragingly low and employees continue to opt for plans that don’t really meet their needs.

But brokers, HR professionals and benefits managers can change all that. They simply need to tap into the data that’s available, which tells us that one-size-fits-all benefits plans are obsolete.

This was an ongoing theme at PlanSource’s Eclipse recent benefits and human resources conference. Dayne Williams, PlanSource CEO, set the tone with his opening remarks. Employees expect more from HR, more from their benefits packages, but companies are behind the curve. He said he’s still working with companies that use a paper enrollment process, which drives him crazy.

“We’re pushing more procurement of benefits out to employees, but we haven’t upped our game,” he said. “And employees aren’t prepared to do these things yet.”

Employees remain “benefits illiterate,” added Scott Millson of MillsonJames. “Just 14 percent of insured adults can identify basic insurance terms,” he said. “We are not communicating with them. Employees expect a good enrollment experience, but the consumer tools they expect are not delivered. One size does not necessarily fit all today, due to diversity.”

Industry leaders, however, are no longer flailing around to see what works. Instead, by analyzing the data they have, they are pinpointing ways that benefits packages can better serve the individual. They are enhancing the workplace based on individual preferences, while identifying tools, programs and communications vehicles that bring people together at work despite their diversity.

“Unemployment is at a record low, and top talent is in high demand. To attract and retain top talent, employers will need to create work experiences that foster connection in this era of automation,” Meredith Ryan-Reid, senior vice president, group benefits, MetLife, told BenefitsPro following her Eclipse presentation. “Employees want a say in how, when, and where they work—and they’ll reward employers that offer them that with hard work, performance, and loyalty.”

The numbers from a recent MetLife study support her. Consider:

• 76 percent said working from home means their employer trusts them • 73 percent of one-day-a-week remote workers said coworkers feel like family • 87 percent of employees who have work/life balance are loyal and satisfied

When employees believe they have achieved work/life balance, Ryan-Reid said, 8 in 10 were more engaged and were more productive at work.

When their needs are reflected in their benefits options, engagement jumps too. More than half surveyed said their employer should take some responsibility for their financial wellness. Yet less than 2 in 10 employers offer any type of financial wellness option.

A major challenge is turning those numbers into actionable programs and processes. Ryan-Reid and others agreed that the core issue is poor and outdated communications systems. In an era where most people turn to YouTube to find out how to do something, HR is woefully lacking in video knowledge.

MetLife has been aggressively adding video assets to its enrollment process, and it’s paying off.

“Videos add a different way to engage and to educate and communicate to [employees] about the various benefits their employers offer. By incorporating videos, employers are able to discuss enrollment options with their workforce in a more human and engaging way,” Ryan-Reid said.

PlanSource and others are partnering with Jellyvision, an HR services vendor that provides an avatar named Alex who helps walk employees through the benefits enrollment process.

Alex’s advice to employees navigating the enrollment process is “based in behavioral science, so that [an employee] can make better benefits decisions quickly,” Jellyvision says.

“Jellyvision is very intuitive,” Williams said. “It offers a full-scale interaction with the client.”

While Jellyvision is designed more for larger employers “that want the most intuitive software to expand the coverage decision,” tools like Alex are rapidly emerging and will soon become available across the board.

Jellyvision isn’t strictly a video enhancement. But it is visual and interactive, and is infused with the kind of artificial intelligence that is rapidly changing the way enrollment is managed. It meets consumers and employees where they are, communicating on a different level.

“Communication in general in our industry has been lacking,” Williams said. “Video solutions and platforms like Jellyvision better educate the consumer.”

That diversity in communications is critical during enrollment if employees are to choose the package that’s best for themselves and their family, he said. Studies show that 8 in 10 employees attempt to navigate the enrollment process before reaching out to a live representative. Too many are forced to do the latter.

“If you think about our ecosystem, we have 60 million transactions in our elections,” Williams said. “We have all this data to show carriers how they are stacking up against other carriers, to show employers what benefits they really should be offering. Right now it’s embedded in the platform. That data is really going to change reporting.”

The key: properly analyzing that data. That’s where artificial intelligence will play perhaps its most important role.

Armen Berjikly, senior director of strategy, Ultimate Software, said that delegating to robots the evaluation of enrollment process feedback from employees demonstrably improves the analysis of the data. That leads to process improvements that weren’t possible when humans were tasked with those evaluations.

“Think about the things that don’t bother a computer: volume, velocity, stamina, continuous learning, and unconscious bias,” he said. “They don’t get tired and they don’t have opinions. Humans usually don’t continually learn, while machines do. And we have built-in biases that affect decisions we make. Machines don’t have those kinds of biases.”

Ultimate Software provides a range of HR software support services, including software that reviews and analyzes employee feedback. Berjikly said the company has found its AI-generated feedback analyses to be substantially more accurate than those done by humans. In particular, it surpasses humans in its ability to distinguish between when an employee is confused by the process versus angry or frustrated.

“If we are building tools to help run organizations, you have to figure out what’s going on and you have to figure out a way to improve it. We need to know if someone is confused about benefits versus excited about new products. Confusion is rather easy to resolve versus frustration and anger. And AI is just better at doing that.”

Berjikly said AI is not going away. “It’s here to stay. But we should set guidelines and expectations. AI must respect our privacy, work with us as we are, ensure all voices are heard, help each person realize their potential, and continuously improve organizations.”

In other words, don’t deify or fear AI—harness and guide it to match the organization’s culture and mission. And please, no more paper during the enrollment process.