Digital tools the new standard for open enrollment engagement

The adoption of digital tools for employee communication and engagement accelerated during the pandemic. As the economy returns to normal, it appears that these tools will remain standard components of successful open enrollment campaigns.

Related: Open enrollment in an opening-up America: What employers should consider and employees may expect

The 2021-22 Open Enrollment Case Study and Trends Report from Flimp Communications identified several trends in open-enrollment communications:

• Video education is here to stay. Videos are the preferred method of learning for many employees and allow for self-paced education.
• Decision-support tools are an important component of open enrollment communications. When campaigns included a decision-support tool, average engagement rates jumped to 77%.
• QR codes made a big comeback. Requests tripled from 2020 and were included in 15% of all campaigns, up from 10% in 2020.
• Digital postcards outperform email alone, with an average engagement rate of 72%.

Although email still is a necessary means of communication, engagement rates increase dramatically when used to distribute digital postcard content.

“With hybrid and remote work becoming the new normal, it’s no surprise that there was an increase in demand for communicating with our digital postcards for open enrollment benefits education to mobile devices,” said Wayne Wall, CEO and founder of Flimp.

The report offered several takeaway messages for brokers and employers as they look ahead to this year’s open enrollment:

• Decision-support tools fuel even higher engagement. Decision-support tools help employees make more-informed decisions that save them and the company money. This self-serve approach to researching, evaluating options and selecting plans boosts selection confidence and improves enrollment results.
• Push messages frequently. Consider creating a benefits communication calendar. Make sure messages are concise, visual and actionable. Include deadlines and enrollment portal access information in every message. Supplemental information such as access to a benefits resource center, digital benefits guides, explainer videos or information around voluntary benefits should be shared regularly. This focused approach resulted in better knowledge and improved results.
• Personalize messages. Customization of employee benefits has become part of improving the employee experience. Digital enrollment campaigns were particularly effective, because they could be adjusted and customized for a variety of audiences in multiple languages across a dispersed workforce.
• Deliver more resources and make it visually appealing. Visually compelling content and more-frequent distribution of content was an overarching theme. The pandemic highlighted the need for benefits such as telehealth, mental health services, wellness and hospital-indemnity coverage. There was a greater emphasis on self-guided education around voluntary benefits, which requires more-engaging visual content, with more- frequent and focused distribution.
• Mobile friendly. One trend we is an increase in content that can reach employees (and their spouses) no matter where they work.
• Active enrollment prevails. Campaigns that specified it was an active-enrollment period saw an engagement rate nearly 30% higher than those that were explicitly passive or where active/passive wasn’t specified at all.

Read more: 

• Managing a human-digital workforce in 2022 and beyond
• 3 tips for better employee benefits communication
• 2022 sales & marketing tips: Creating a better employee communication strategy