Employers spend millions on their health plans but too often neglect communicating relevant information to employees. Since education empowers employees to become informed health care consumers, investing in employee communication should be part of the health care investment.
Effectively communicating to employees about health care is a well-established best practice, but few employees significantly understand what their health care entails.
73% of 2,100 surveyed consumers say they sometimes, rarely or never understand everything their policy covers, according to the 2014 Aflac Open Enrollment Survey.
64% of respondents disagreed or only somewhat agreed that they are more prepared than last year’s open enrollment.
71% were concerned their personal insurance situation will become more confusing.
This lack of understanding not only wastes money, but it can also affect how employees view their employers.
79% of workers who reviewed employer-sponsored benefits in the past year and rated their education as “excellent” or “very good” also gave their employers the same ratings, according to a news release about the Unum’s 2013 Employee Education and Enrollment Study (2014). The sixth annual survey results are based on a Harris Poll of 1,521 people.
And since many employers are moving from employer-directed to employee-directed approaches to health care coverage, helping employees become well informed will help them understand the ramifications of their choices, including costs. This has always been true for traditional health care plans, but even more so for consumer-driven health care plans.
Preparing employees for open enrollment starts with an employee communication plan. For employers, now is the time to act to improve open enrollment for 2015. That’s because building and executing an effective communication plan takes several months.
Employee communication plans are structured as road maps. Inspired plans have a common set of elements with a purpose behind each one.
These elements include:
- Knowing your audience
- Crafting effective messaging
- Developing relevant and easy-to-understand content
- Choosing the most effective ways to reach employee audience(s)
- Following up for continuous improvement
Knowing Your Audience
One employee communication challenge revolves around the fact that internal subject matter experts (SMEs) understand health care plans so well that they can’t see the employee’s uninformed perspective. Concluding what employees know and understand based on management assumptions is unlikely to yield positive results.
Employees who are not highly educated or who speak English as a second language may experience difficulty understanding the technical language concerning health care. Others might just be too overwhelmed to make the necessary time to sort it out.
Conducting a survey often serves as the basis of an employee communication plan.
Conducting Employee Surveys and Focus Groups
When it comes to surveys, the more employees give their feedback, the more reliable the results. Gaining the C-Suite’s support to take the survey during working hours shows commitment and increases participation.
Ideally, the survey should be presented in the context of an overall affirming message that management cares for its employees and families. A culture of caring encourages employee satisfaction, reduces potential litigation from personnel issues and supports employees who are off work from a long illness, disability and workers’ compensation. This can be reinforced in the survey’s brief introduction, which is why their feedback is vital.
To encourage participation, consider offering incentives such as branded T-shirts. Regardless of the strategies, promising and actually sharing the survey results with employees encourages transparency and bolsters trust.
Another approach, which can be used separately or in tandem with surveys, is to conduct focus groups. To ensure a cross-section of the workforce, consider assembling several focus groups representing different demographics. Offering the survey or sending focus group invitations to employee family members who deal the most closely with health care decisions is another great way to gain insight.
Regardless of the approach, choosing the right questions is directly linked to the success of a survey or focus group. To query employees, first identify exactly what you want to know and the best way for employees to answer, whether through true or false statements, rankings and other methods. Whether it’s a survey or focus group, responding to the questions must be as easy and convenient as possible.
Open-ended questions can be helpful if employees desire to take time to answer them. Things like, “What questions would you want answered about your health care plan?” or “Please share your expectations from your health plan.” can both generate good insights.
Potential statements for ranking 1 – 5 from agree to disagree include:
- I feel confident I made the right health care choice for my family and me.
- I understand the relationship between co-payments and deductibles.
- I know how to save the most money with my company pharmacy plan.
- I know where to go if I have any questions.
- When I receive my explanation of benefits statement, I understand what the insurance covers and payment calculations.
- I do not have the time and knowledge to manage my health care expenses.
- I can afford to take advantage of my health plan.
To learn the best way to communicate to employees, compose a list of the communication vehicles your company uses and ask employees to identify their preferred options.
The list might include one-on-one communication, training sessions, electronic newsletters, videos, intranet sites, text messages, printed newsletters, brochures, posters, digital signage or flyers. Traditionalists and baby boomers could prefer a conversation while Generation Y and millennials may prefer texts or social media. But take care again not to make assumptions about the best communication channel.
Analyzing Survey Results
Reviewing the survey responses should identify the main issues employees face which need to be addressed by the communications plan. What are the challenges? Where are the gaps that need to be closed and can success be measured?
It’s then time to determine a goal and objectives.
The objectives identify the outcomes to be accomplished in order to reach the goal. All objectives must be SMART: specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time bound. For example:
- enroll 100 employees within 6 months of campaign implementation into a high deductible plan;
- increase benefit understanding of 25% of employees within 4 months;
- reduce calls to HR, insurers or third party administrators (TPAs) by 20% within 3 months; or,
- increase cost calculator use and treatment comparison tools by a majority of employees within 6 months,
- increase employee understanding of the Affordable Care Act or consumer-driven health plans by campaign conclusion.
Effective Messaging
Solid messages should resonate with the audience. At a minimum, they should be easy to understand and relevant to employees.
Messaging can revolve around different themes, such as: the quality of the health care plan, a central passion inspiring the company or employees such as improving employee health and unique characteristics about different health care plans. To improve engagement you could invite employees to develop a slogan or offer creative ways to convey the message.
If the message concerns a change in benefits or bad news, be clear and direct. Being overly positive or calling it an “opportunity” will harm credibility while sending a message that management believes employees are gullible or stupid.
Therefore, do not try to hide health plan cuts that might not be readily apparent. Make an extra effort to communicate cost increases so employees understand the reasons behind them. Showing employees, for example, how much of their total compensation stems from health care could help them better appreciate the benefit.
In a future article, I will cover the other key elements of effective employee communication plans: Developing relevant and easy-to-understand content, choosing the most effective ways to reach employee audience(s) and follow-up for continuous improvement.
Alan Wang is the President of UBF and serves as the lead consultant. He has delivered the UBF solution set throughout the world and is highly regarded for his areas of expertise. You can follow him on Twitter @UBFconsulting.