The Best Practices Guide: Benefit Education and Communication Checklist
For The Principal 10 Best Companies—2008, rigorous education and communication go hand-in-hand with their benefits programs. Checkout these ideas from the winners to see how you can bolster your education and communication efforts.
Download and print the Benefit Education and Communication Checklist (PDF: 79 KB)
- Do you help employees through economic turbulence? Ease employee worries and forestall knee-jerk reactions by bringing in a financial professional to provide expertise to answer their questions.
- Can your employees meet one-on-one with a financial or benefit professional on company time? One-on-one meetings allow employees to ask questions and express their concerns without fear of embarrassment.
- Have you considered making personalized meetings mandatory? Some times employees need just an extra push to get them to take advantage of one-on-one meetings.
- Do you send employees a total compensation statement? By sending employees a customized total compensation statement at least once a year, you will let them see the total value of their pay and benefits—a real retention aid.
- Are you focusing education on under-used benefits? Boost education on benefits that have low participation. A lack of awareness and appreciation may be the only thing keeping employees from taking advantage of the benefit.
- Have you considered letting employees tell why benefits are important? Consider having employees give testimonials about the difference a particular benefit has made in their lives and include it in your employee newsletter.
- Do you listen as well as talk? Consider employee focus groups to get feedback on benefits and provide education at the same time. Employees will feel more ownership of the programs you offer if they have had the chance to give input.
- Do you beef up education during benefit changes and reductions? Ongoing, open communication helps employees better understand and accept things like premium increases.
