Open enrollment: Keep the momentum going all year (with extra focus on financial health)

Open enrollment season is the culmination of months of hard work that shape an important moment in your company’s culture. Done right, this time of year can help your participants set themselves up for ongoing financial wellbeing. But to be truly successful, benefits leaders must continue to assess results, identify needs, improve benefits, and educate employees throughout the year.

The workplace is a primary resource many employees turn to for help with their financial needs, which is partly why it’s so important not to lift your foot off the gas even as benefits enrollment windows draw to a close. Make sure you have a game plan ready to continue to build lasting engagement and support the rest of the year—starting with these 6 essential strategies.

#1: Open a dialogue with employees

Even if your benefits offering doesn’t change very much year to year, business objectives and employee needs are constantly evolving. Invite employee feedback on the enrollment experience while it’s fresh in everyone’s minds. Ask employees what they think worked well and what didn’t. Then, continue to check in regularly about their ongoing user experience the rest of the year as well.

Employee feedback can help you identify gaps in your coverage, the reasons behind engagement trends, technological issues, or opportunities to better support diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. You don’t have to have all the answers. Create a safe space where employees can be frank about their challenges and their questions so you can listen for opportunities to improve (as well as celebrate the wins).

#2: Gather deeper data—and use it wisely

Steadily monitoring segmented user data behind the scenes can reveal participation patterns, trends, or stories, such as whether usage may differ across gender and ethnicities, job levels and functions, and income and educational levels. All of this can shed light on how to move forward with new offerings, communications campaigns, and more. Compare direct employee feedback against metrics like who is skipping employer matching contributions or which emails are getting opened.

For example, the historic underrepresentation of women and minorities in leadership continues to skew access to equity compensation plans in many organizations. On a similar note, Black and Hispanic employees show higher interest in educational resources for retirement planning. Does your data reveal an unmet need or an opportunity to better engage certain groups in your employee base? Your benefits providers can help you simplify or even automate how you gather and analyze employee data.

#3: Keep benefits communications thoughtful and timely

It’s important to strike a good balance of form and frequency in your benefits messaging so that employees are aware of their resources but don’t feel overwhelmed. Aim to deploy consistent but not too frequent communications across all your platforms that thoughtfully feed timely information and education relevant to individual situations. Mix up channels like SMS text, chats, webinars, conference calls, virtual meetings, or even direct mail to give employees options in how they engage.

Personalization can also improve engagement, but less than half (45%) of employers tailor their benefits communications to better connect with different employee segments. Look for opportunities to connect with important dates or financial literacy themes throughout the year. Talk to your providers about taping into educational content, automated messaging, or other tools and features they have handy that may help your business deliver a more personalized user experience.

#4: Drive engagement through education

Education and communication can either become the largest stumbling block or greatest asset in your benefits program. If people don’t know what to do or how to do it, they won’t appreciate it. The challenge is to provide appropriate context and support so employees can connect the dots between what’s on paper and what happens in real life when applying workplace benefits toward personal financial goals. Find a way to illustrate the value of your benefits that goes beyond charts and tables. For example, how will equity holdings vest after one, two, or three years—enough to help secure a new car or home?

Also make sure to give employees tools to locate the support they need when they need it, whether through guided digital experiences, a support hotline, or virtual training. Use your benefits platforms to highlight educational content, key dates, new offerings, and more. Offer training and materials on relevant topics from how to access plan information to budgeting and investing basics. Your plan providers should be able to help you flesh out your educational programs.

#5: Expand your offering

Employees are looking for support around many aspects of their financial health. Some trending benefits we’re seeing include financial wellness, telehealth, caregiver support, mental health, and of course financial guidance and retirement. Access to personal financial coaching or a financial advisor is a powerful way to help employees better navigate both their benefits and their wider financial lives. For instance, we found 93% of employees view retirement planning assistance as a top priority when choosing where to work, and ranked access to a financial advisor, goals-based retirement investment planning, and access to retirement planning tools and calculators as their top preferences.

Related: Most financial wellness programs need a checkup (retirement planning isn’t enough)

Look for opportunities to provide support for a range of financial needs. This is especially important for more complex instruments such as equity compensation, which employees now consider to be a primary driver of meeting long-term goals, as well as the most effective way for companies to keep them motivated and engaged.⁴ Your plan providers are a good place to start: Ask what additional offerings and professional support they have on tap that might be a sensible addition for your company.

#6: Connect open enrollment to year-round support

A successful open enrollment season hinges on a high standard of excellence that lasts throughout the year. In fact, competitive workplace financial benefits are growing increasingly important, with employees looking for competitive offerings when considering whether or not to stay at their current companies. Remember that while it may be tempting to move on to other projects and concerns in the fall, your employees and prospective talent will still be paying close attention. Benefits programs will continue to play a starring role in company culture year-round.

Kate Winget is Chief Revenue Officer of US Public Equity Solutions at Morgan Stanley at Work.