Open enrollment is an opportune time to educate employees on the traditional and voluntary benefits available to them, and a recent survey suggests that this type of education is needed.
“With only 44% of employees feeling in control of their finances, employers today have a unique opportunity to drive loyalty and retention by empowering employees to make informed benefits decisions,” said Todd Katz, executive vice president, Group, Voluntary & Worksite Benefits, at MetLife.
Here are two tips gleaned from MetLife’s 14th Annual U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study:
- Offer employees “a variety of robust decision-support resources and personalized offerings to help them make educated benefits decisions for their individual situations.”
- Provide one-on-one consultation internally or via brokers, consultants, and enrollment communications firms.
“Despite popular perception that younger adults prefer technology over one-on-one interaction, the study found that 68% of Millennials value one-on-one consultations with a non-sales benefits expert, compared to 62% of Gen X and 57% of Boomers,” MetLife reported.
Other key findings from this survey include:
- 62% of employees agree that they’re looking to their employers for more help in achieving financial security through employee benefits.
- Employees say if employers offered these additional benefits (other than healthcare coverage) it would help reduce their financial stress:
- Life insurance (42%)
- Dental insurance (40%)
- Auto insurance (37%)
- Home insurance (35%)
- Long term disability insurance (31%)
- 71% of employers say that, by working with an enrollment firm, they were able to improve their communications about benefits coverage.
- 21% of employees said when the benefits communication was easy to understand it boosted their confidence in making enrollment decisions.
For more information on this survey, and to view the full results, click here.