Low employee engagement in benefits programs is a common problem, one that continues to grow as health care benefits become more complicated and costs continue to rise. In fact, many large employers report year-long engagement rates among employees and their benefits to be less than 10 percent. The reason? Employees have a hard time understanding how their benefits work. Despite the best efforts of brokers and benefits managers to develop great plans and educate employees on how to take advantage of their benefits, engagement in health care and tax advantaged accounts remain stagnant at best. The great news is that, with a little bit of creativity, you can successfully engage employees and increase enrollment over time.

In this article, we look at some of the factors behind poor employee engagement, discuss how it impacts business for both brokers and employers, and reveal how to successfully engage employees with innovative education programs designed with the employee in mind.

Why aren't employees more engaged with health benefit programs?

The reality is that you could offer the best possible health care options out there, but if employees don't understand what they are and how they benefit from them, they're more likely to have a negative perception. Low engagement comes down to two primary factors – confusion and complexity.

Historically, employers offered traditional health care plans with monthly premiums that came out of employees' paychecks, low copays for doctor visits and prescriptions, and straightforward co-insurance payments. Simple. Now, as health care costs have increased, we have seen the popularity of high-deductible plans skyrocket. In fact, one-third of large employers now only offer a high-deductible plan. While premiums for high-deductible plans are typically far lower than those for traditional health plans, employees don't see this. Most employees aren't aware of how high their premiums were before. What they do see are the new out-of-pocket expenses in the form of the high deductible they must reach before insurance starts to cover the bulk of their health care expenses.