Open enrollment 101, Pt 1: Industry experts' best tips

This is the first in a two-part series offering open enrollment advice from top benefits advisors, HR leaders, and other benefits professionals. 

As we head into Q4 craziness, what’s one piece of open enrollment advice you’d offer your fellow benefits advisors, HR professionals, or even overwhelmed employees? From ways to boost staff morale, to specific cost-savings strategies or communication hacks, here are actionable ideas and strategies that will make OE 2024 easier and more effective.

Let’s be clear

“Open enrollment brings many challenges, but the complexity of the plan, yearly changes, and demographic shifts should drive a company’s OE strategy. My advice to others for a smooth and successful open enrollment is to develop a well-rounded communication strategy. Below are the methods that have worked well for us.

1. 3 types of education meetings: virtual site specific, in person, and open virtual (for any employee or spouse). We typically conduct 40-50 meetings in total, because RBP requires it.
2. A well-thought-out email/broadcast messaging campaign. Concise content and consistent frequency is key.
3. Old-fashioned mail. We send one large postcard to the employee’s home during open enrollment for two reasons: to remind them to check their email and to reach the spouse, if applicable.
4. Assign people on your team to call employees every day and remind them to complete open enrollment and provide instructions.
5. Send daily status reports to managers and ask them to help with reminders.
6. This year, we are doing a virtual benefits fair the week before OE with door prizes.”

Jennifer Grace Pipes, SPHR, MBA, Director, Total Rewards & Employee Development, Denali

Keep your priorities straight

“During open enrollment, my biggest piece of advice is to build structure but leave room for flexibility—and that includes scheduling some “me time.”  Whether you’re an advisor, HR professional, or an employee feeling the weight of it all, you can’t pour from an empty cup.  Set clear deadlines and expectations, but also block off a few minutes in your day to decompress.  It could be a quick walk or a moment to enjoy your coffee and chat about your weekend — anything that gives your mind a break. When you’re clear-headed, you make better decisions, and everyone benefits.  If you don’t prioritize yourself, you won’t be any good to anyone else during this hectic time.” 

– Susan L Combs, PPACA, ChHC, REBC, president, Combs & Company LLC

Invest (every)where it matters

“You invest a great deal of time and energy into constructing benefits packages then communicating them in English, but don’t drop the ball on communication in other languages. Taking what appears to be the easy way out with automated translation or exploiting (yes, exploiting) a bilingual colleague or your client’s bilingual supervisor is extremely risky and can backfire badly. I recently shared a very specific and common example. 

When you go this route, you are not only serving your client and their employees very poorly, you are also losing money. Voluntary plans can be quite a good fit for many employees in this country who speak other languages, and when you invest in explaining them effectively, we find that participation increases, generating an ROI for you and your firm. Everyone benefits (pun intended) when this is done right.” 

– Melissa Burkhart, founder and president, Futuro Sólido USA

Work to make it fun

“If you talk for more than 10 minutes  during a presentation, you lost their interest six minutes ago. Consider several ( 10 or more) small touches and get creative!

• Flyers on car windshields
• Sign twirlers at shift change outside the parking garage entrance
• Anything food related
• An offsite party for spouses with raffles or give away items (designer purses are a hit with the ladies)
• Commercials on monitors in break rooms 
• Singing telegram at lunch for the whole cafeteria
• Mirror decals that say “want to meet the person responsible for making your next pay raise possible? Attend our benefits discussion Thursday at 4.”

“One long boring meeting is not going to get you there. The downside? It takes work and commitment.”

– Deb Ault “Nurse Deb”, president,  AIMM

K.I.S.S.

“Never underestimate simplicity. As advisors, we try to overcomplicate everything. I always try to think about how I feel when a professional is explaining something to me that I don’t completely understand and then I try to avoid creating that feeling for others!”

– Braden Monaco, managing partner, Blue Horizon Benefits

On point messaging

“What is the core message the employer wants to communicate this year? That needs to be weaved into every email, text, short video, benefits guide, and presentation from the employer and advisor.

“For example, one of our clients is starting year three of a multi-year health care strategy. With the savings we’ve built up over the past two years, this employer chose to give every employee back $1,200 AND offer employer-paid direct primary care. In order to get these results, we had to do something different and that required the employees to trust the company’s decisions and engage with the health plan. They did both and the company wanted to reward and thank them.

“The message this year was essentially “Thank you for trusting us as we went down a new path to better health care. Your engagement has resulted in free surgeries, free specialty meds, free cancer treatments, and now we are adding free direct primary care — no more waiting to see your PCP! This is just the beginning. Keep being active participants in your health and together we can continue to build year after year to create the highest quality and lowest cost health care plan in the nation.”

– Chelsea Ryckis, president and founder, Ethos Benefits

Don’t assume

“Here is something any company can try:

- Survey your employees (like yesterday) about how they like to receive communications.

- Send comms through all available modes: text, email, flyers, intranet, etc.

- Measure the open rates on each communication against the survey

“Now you’ve got a comms plan that can meet employees where they want to be met — year round.”

– Sims Tillirson, SVP, Sales & Broker Partnerships, BLUE RAVEN actuarial