5 myths about millennials and benefits
Originally posted by Lindsey Pollak on https://www.benefitspro.com
Millennials (ages 18-31), also known as Gen Y, are 80 million strong, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As this generation climbs into leadership roles, they’ll change many aspects of the workplace, including the benefits landscape.
To help better understand this giant generation of consumers and employees, it’s time to dispel five common myths about who millennials are and what they want.
1.) Millennials all live at home and don’t have financial responsibilities.
True, many millennials are living at home today. Three out of 10 parents (27 percent) have at least one adult child, between the ages of 21 and 40, still living with them at home, according to the National Housing Federation. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have financial responsibilities: Mom and Dad might be asking Junior to chip in on rent or expecting him to pay off his student loans they co-signed.
The Hartford 2013 Benefits for Tomorrow Study found two-thirds of workers today have loved ones relying on their paycheck, with 10 percent of millennials reporting that their parents rely on their salary. That’s all the more reason for millennials to protect their paycheck by signing for disability insurance at work.
For many millennials living at home, one of their primary financial responsibilities is dealing with student loan debt. The average debt for students graduating in 2013 is $35,000, according to Fidelity. If parents are co-signers on those student loans, it’s in their best interest to encourage their kids to sign up for disability and life insurance at work. Disability insurance can help keep an income coming in (and the ability to pay back loans) should the millennial worker become ill or injured off the job, while life insurance can help provide funding to pay off student loan debt.
Help the millennials make the connection between benefits and their very real financial responsibilities.
2.) Millennials want all digital communications all the time.
True, millennials are considered “digital natives.” They’ve grown up with technology their entire lives. While they like digital options, many appreciate help in real life, as well. They appreciate an advisor who can provide advice in whatever way they desire — text, email, instant message, phone call, or an in-person meeting.
Help millennials by providing the benefits advisors that they’re looking for. They want to be able to review their benefits options online but have a real-live person available to answer their specific questions. Help your clients make this connection possible.
3.) Millennials all want to start their own companies like Mark Zuckerberg.
True, many millennials think like entrepreneurs. Many even have side projects, like a blog, in addition to their 9-to-5 jobs. But the vast majority of millennials like to work for companies of all sizes — as long as those companies understand them and their needs.
Help the millennials on your team feel like entrepreneurs, by allowing them to express their individuality and effect change around them. And share this advice with your employer clients, as well.
For example, some companies allow millennials to pursue small projects related to their particular interests or participate in occasional community service projects during work hours.
4.) Millennials don’t want baby boomers’ help or advice.
True, millennials enjoy their independence. But in the workplace they actually appreciate theirbaby boomer co-workers’ experience and knowledge. Don’t forget that the millennials are the children of baby boomers, and many raised their kids in their own image. Millennials tend to like and appreciate their baby boomer bosses and colleagues.
The Hartford 2013 Benefits For Tomorrow Study found that 93 percent of baby boomers believe millennials bring new skills and ideas to the workplace, and 89 percent of millennials agree baby boomers in the workplace are a great source of mentorship.
Help millennials by making connections between the two generations — either at your workplace or among your employer clients. Consider the idea of co-mentoring, in which employees of different generations share knowledge and skills with each other.
When you are having discussions around company policies and decisions, make sure to have representative employees present from all generations in your company. This way there will be someone who can offer each generation’s point of view on the items under discussion.
5.) Millennials aren’t serious about being leaders.
True, millennials are often viewed as “entitled” and carefree. Case in point: the YOLO (you only live once) catchphrase. But many are leaders in all aspects of life. In fact, 15 percent of millennials are already in management positions, and there are many young people who want to move into leadership positions soon.
Help millennial leaders to understand that they need to protect their potential. Show them how insurance benefits can keep them on track to meet their professional and personal goals. For example, if they can’t work because they tore a ligament during a 5K, disability insurancemay help them pay bills — and stay on track to buying a house or traveling around the world.
By helping millennials as both consumers and employees, you can better advise your clients and manage your business today — and into the increasingly millennial-dominated future.
Four tips for better benefit plan communications
Originally posted by Dani McCauley on the EBN blog.
It’s make it or break it time for employee benefit plans, suggests guest blogger Dani McCauley. She has four suggestions for better communication. Do you agree? Share your thoughts in the comments. —Andrea Davis, Managing Editor
Not to be an alarmist, but there is a convergence of events and trends that will make or break the success of many employers’ benefit plans this year. However, a spot-on communications plan will smooth the road ahead, and can even turn risks into opportunities.
Position changes properly
With the biggest health care reform provisions coming into effect in 2014, many employers are making an array of not-so-subtle changes to their benefit offerings. Such changes could range from streamlining down to fewer plan options, to significant premium differentials for wellness participation.
Whether the changes are seen as positive, negative or neutral depends on how well they’re communicated. After all, employees who are satisfied with their company benefits are more likely to be loyal to their employer, according to a recent study by MetLife. The study found that while only 42% of employees in the U.S. would strongly recommend their employer, those who do feel this way are three times more likely to be satisfied with their benefits.
Key takeaway: Taking the time to think through tough benefit messages and position changes in the best possible light will pay dividends.
Wellness
An effective wellness program represents the holy grail for group health plan sponsors seeking to actually change the health risks in their employee populations (thus mitigating costs and increasing worker productivity). Notice I said an “effective” wellness program. In order for such programs to be effective, they must be communicated in a way that helps employees to internalize the lifestyle changes they are expected to make.
For example, sending a quarterly newsletter with diet and exercise tips is likely insufficient to spark meaningful behavioral changes. Such a program is likely to succeed best if kicked-off with in-person meetings and frequent communications, possibly through a company intranet or in some other medium that keeps guidance, goals and incentives front and center for employees on a daily basis.
Key takeaway: Don’t invest in a wellness program unless you’re willing to back it up with an intensive communications plan.
Compliance confusion
Health care reform brings with it a host of new communication requirements designed to ensure that employees have equal access to benefits information, know their opt-out rights, understand the plans being offered, and more.
To take one example, the Summary of Benefits and Coveragerequirement just made benefit communications a little more complicated. While the SBC format is rigid and proscribed, employers must comply with the form’s required phrasing. But don’t rely on the SBC as your primary benefit communication document. Employers still need to communicate their overall benefits offering in a cohesive fashion. From health to retirement, your company benefits need to be explained in a way that resonates with your corporate culture, ideally unifying the entire plan behind a meaningful and relevant theme.
Key takeaway: Don’t abandon your traditional benefit communications materials. The SBC requirement is strictly an add-on.
Multi, Multi-Media
With so many options for communicating with employees, it’s important to consider what will work best for your corporate culture. If employees are spread far and wide at multiple locations, video tutorials can be a great way to reach out and educate employees who might otherwise feel disconnected at open enrollment time and year-round. Companies that are really tech-savvy might also consider social media or mass text messaging to bolster their efforts. But for other organizations where employees have limited access to the Internet throughout the day, call-center assistance might still be the best way to keep from placing certain groups of employees at a disadvantage.
Key takeaway: When it comes to communications logistics, let practicality be your guide.
Dani McCauley is senior vice president of marketing with Univers Workplace Solutions.
What methods are you using to communicate your benefits plan? Are the messages any different than in past years? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Ways to improve employee benefits communications
Original article from https://www.businessinsurance.com
Benefit management experts' recommendations for improving employee benefit communications
DO
• Make it relevant: “Instead of one version of the information that contains everything an employee could ever want to know, regardless of their situation, why not create multiple versions of that information tailored to the specifics of your business units or demographic groups,” said Ruth Hunt, a Minneapolis-based principal at Buck Consultants L.L.C.
• Scale down, if necessary: Where larger employers may roll out robust Web platforms loaded with plan information and decision-support tools, smaller employers could distill their content down to a few pages of key information alongside a blog or online newsletter. “It doesn't have to be flashy,” said Jennifer Benz, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Benz Communications. “People want really simple, actionable information, and that's certainly within the realm of what most small and midsize employers can support.”
DON'T
• Flood them with jargon: “Keep things simple, and in as plain a language as possible,” Ms. Benz said. “Benefit managers usually assume a much higher level of understanding among employees in terms of how health care works. Additionally, your corporate counsel is going to want to be very cautious and make doubly sure that the communications are legally compliant, even at the expense of basic understandability.”
• Wait for annual enrollment: “One of the biggest missteps we see, especially among mid-market employers, is treating annual enrollment like it's the Super Bowl,” said Joann Hall Swenson, health engagement best practice leader at Aon Hewitt in Minneapolis. “It might be compliant with the law and it might get people enrolled in your benefit plan, but it's not going to drive any of your employees to get healthier. Instead, what if you spread some of that money and effort over the course of the full year, and focus your communications on actually helping people use the benefit plans?”
• Tell them what they already know: “What we've found is that consumers already know what to do to be healthier,” Ms. Swenson said. “About 90% of employees can recite to you that they should eat right, exercise, not smoke, etc.”
Workers wildly unprepared for health care changes
Original article https://ebn.benefitnews.com
By Tristan Lejeune
The third annual Aflac WorkForces Report, released last week, reveals a sobering gap in employee readiness to handle and take on the shift toward consumer-driven health plans and defined contribution health. A majority of workers (54%) would prefer not to have more control over their insurance options, citing a lack of time and information to manage it effectively, and 72% have never even heard the phrase “consumer-driven health care.”
Aflac and Research Now surveyed 1,884 benefits leaders and 5,229 wage-earners and found arresting disconnects in their expectations, plans and views of the future. For example, 62% of employees think their medical costs will increase, but only 23% are saving money for those hikes. A full three-quarters of the workforce think their employer will educate them about changes to their health care coverage as a result of reform, but only 13% of employers say educating employees about health care reform is important to their organization.
“It may be referred to as ‘consumer-driven health care,’ but in actuality, consumers aren’t the ones driving these changes, so it’s no surprise that many feel unprepared,” says Audrey Boone Tillman, executive vice president of corporate services at Aflac. “The bottom line is if consumers aren’t educated about the full scope of their options, they risk making costly mistakes without a financial back-up plan.”
Aflac reports what many benefits leaders instinctively know: Consumersalready find health insurance decisions intimidating and don’t welcome increased responsibility. Fifty-three percent fear they might mismanage their coverage, leaving their families less protected than they are now. And significant ignorance remains: Plan participants are not very or not at all knowledgeable about flex spending accounts (25%), health savings accounts (32%), health reimbursement accounts (49%) or federal or state health care exchanges (76%).
According to Aflac, 53% of employers have introduced a high-deductible health plan over the past three years, and that trend shows no sign of slowing. Yet more than half of workers have done nothing to prepare for changes from HDHPs, the Affordable Care Act or other system shifts.
“It’s time for consumers to face reality,” Tillman says. “Ready or not, they are being put in control of their health insurance decisions – and that means having to make choices that could have a big impact on personal finances. If employers aren’t offering guidance to workers on how to make crucial benefits decisions, the responsibility lies in the hands of consumers to educate themselves.”
Balancing Benefits Communication
Source: https://www.hreonline.com
By Mark McGraw
Recent research shows a majority of companies struggle with communicating benefits information to employees on a year-round basis. Experts urge HR leaders to incorporate the technology and tools at their disposal to make communication strategies more successful, and to document their efforts to ensure consistency.
HR professionals know that a healthy workforce generally equates to a more productive workforce. And, HR professionals know they need to consistently encourage healthy behaviors among employees. Actually driving this important message home on a regular basis, however, seems easier said than done.
A recent Benz Communication survey of 298 benefits professionals finds less than one-third of employers communicating with employees throughout the year about benefits program information, despite nearly 80 percent of respondents citing "getting employees engaged year-round" as one of their biggest challenges.
Economics and antiquated approaches are two of the biggest culprits behind breakdowns in benefits communication, says Jennifer Benz, founder and CEO of Benz Communications, headquartered in San Francisco.
"Part of the issue is bandwidth and capacity. Benefits teams have been trimmed back while their responsibilities get bigger and bigger," she says. "You have large organizations with small teams responsible for all aspects of benefits -- regulatory, compliance and communication.
"You also have a lot of companies still using old tools that make it expensive and more difficult to manage communication," Benz continues. "This kind of connects to the bandwidth issue, and makes communicating year-round impossible. But if organizations transition to new tools like social media, blogs and websites, they could better manage ongoing communication."
For example, many organizations still rely on print newsletters and/or brochures to relay benefits-related information to employees, she says. "Some companies still feel that individuals can't rely on online channels if they don't have computer access during the day. But that's just not true. Print newsletters are expensive and take time to put together. And, the same can be said of brochures and employee meetings as well. Trying to orchestrate them takes a lot of time. These channels are viable, and can be used to complement more modern methods, but they require a lot more resources."
Creating a website outside the company's firewall that includes video and other multimedia resources is just one relatively simple example of how embracing technology can aid benefits communication, Benz continues.
"These tools just make the message easier to understand and more accessible. Benefits managers have been focusing on communication, but there's still a big gap between the way benefits communication works and the rest of the world communicates."
But, however successful your efforts in getting employees to read benefits materials -- in print and/or online ? may be the challenge of getting employees engaged in health benefits programs remains, says Helen Darling, president and CEO of the Washington-based National Business Group on Health.
"People have always done very little related to their benefits until a problem arises or when they are required to actively enroll in plans," says Darling. "Inertia tends to be one of the most powerful forces in health benefits."
To spur employees into action, employers "have to do a number of things," she says, "such as . . . paying employees through reduced premiums or money into accounts to encourage engagement.
"And, more effective, targeted and clever communication can help ensure more success. HR can evaluate what they've done in the past, segment their populations, target communications to them, use diverse approaches and track which methods and messages are most effective."
The study does suggest some movement on this front, with 56 percent of participants reporting the effectiveness of their benefits-communication efforts has improved during the last three years.
"While it may not always feel like it, we're at a very exciting time for HR and benefits communication," says Jim Hoff, principal at Aon Hewitt's communication practice in Chicago.
"The role of effective communication is more important than ever, as organizations need to get their people healthy and productive, and need to show an increasing return on the investments they're making in people and benefits programs," says Hoff. "Plus, there are more and better tools and tactics at our disposal to truly market benefits programs and drive new behaviors."
Despite making strides, however, nearly half (45 percent) of survey respondents indicate they still aren't satisfied with their current communication strategies, with another 28 percent describing themselves as "ambivalent" about their approach.
First and foremost, successful benefits-communication strategies should be comprehensive, and not just a calendar of benefits-related activities, says Hoff.
"HR leaders and benefits communicators can ask questions like, 'What are the goals of the business and HR overall, and how can communication efforts drive behaviors that will achieve those goals? How can we best segment and target our audience to ensure we're delivering the right messages to the right people via the right channel at the right time? And how can we best use the channels and technologies available in a multichannel approach -- traditional web and email, mobile sites, text messaging and very targeted use of print?' "
Beyond using the technology and tools at HR's disposal, communication plans should start with understanding the three-to-five year strategic priorities of the business -- healthcare cost management, growth by acquisition, improving productivity and customer service, and attracting and retaining talent, for example, says Hoff.
"Associated with each of these priorities are one- to two-year HR outcomes," he continues, "with a focus on measurable return and a few outcomes that are aggressive but achievable. From there, a communication strategy can be tied to those outcomes.
Within each of these focus areas, the strategy should address the key messages for each critical audience as well as stakeholders and opinion leaders within the organization, says Hoff. An effective approach should also include what he describes as a "multi-channel blend of push and pull communication, so that busy employees get the information -- and motivation -- they need while having access to additional information when they want it. And, on top of all this should be a relentless focus on making it easy and relevant."
The entire strategy should be documented as well, in order to track and measure consistency and progress throughout the year, adds Benz.
"Without having some sort of documented strategy, you can't tell if what you're doing is effective," she says. "I think HR leaders can make this a priority within their organizations, and can elevate the role of benefits to something that's critical to business, rather than just being thought of as a necessary administrative function."
Getting the Word Out on the Positives of Employee Benefits
BY PAULA AVEN GLADYCH
Source: benefitspro.com
Employers who want to boost employee satisfaction with their benefits need to evaluate their employees’ current benefits experience and identify ways to improve the process through more effective communications and education.
A new study by The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America shows a strong relationship still exists between an employee’s benefits enrollment experience and their perceived value of the benefits that their employer offers.
According to the study, 70 percent of employees who were able to receive benefits communications in their preferred channels said they were very confident in their benefits selections versus just 57 percent of those who did not. Workers who were able to enroll in their preferred channel were significantly more satisfied with their overall benefits package (70 percent).
Thirty-seven percent of employers say their benefits communications are very effective in helping employees make the right benefits decisions, and only 34 percent of employees say that the benefits communications they receive are very effective.
“Employee benefits are not the easiest to understand to begin with and as healthcare continues to evolve with employees needing to take a greater role in the decision-making process, the right education and communication is critical,” said Elena Wu, vice president, Group Marketing and Learning Services at Guardian.
“As we gear up for the annual open enrollment period, it is important for employers to realize that the benefits selection process must be top-notch, and communicated effectively, in order to ensure the highest employee satisfaction possible.”
Preferences vary by employee, so single-focused communication efforts, such as only communicating benefits-related information via email, is not likely to have as great of an impact as a benefits communication plan that encompasses multiple channels, the study found, especially during the enrollment period.
Almost 20 percent of employees said they would like to receive benefits communications through six or more options.
When exposed to the same message through different mediums, employees said they are more likely to understand their options.
Eighty percent of workers appreciate being able to sign up for benefits online so they can enroll when and where they choose, and 9 in 10 workers say they are quite satisfied with the online enrollment experience.
The study shows that when employees have benefits communications delivered in the channels they prefer, and are able to enroll in the channel they prefer, they are more likely to make more informed enrollment decisions and ultimately feel more satisfied with their benefits.
This employee confidence in benefits choices then reflects well on their employers, leading to greater loyalty. Employees who are more confident and satisfied with their benefits selections have a higher perceived value of their company’s benefits.
These employees go on to have longer tenure with their current employers and are more likely to say that they plan to stay in their current positions, the study found. Although many factors can affect engagement, it is clear that an effort to enhance the employee’s benefits experience overall can play a major role in creating a positive outcome for not just the worker but also their employer.
The data from this study came from two separate Internet surveys conducted concurrently among 1,667 benefits plan participants and 1,071 benefits plan sponsors. Plan participant results were conducted among those age 22 or older who work full time for a company with at least five employees.
The plan sponsor survey was conducted among employee benefits decision makers, including business executives, business owners, human resources professionals, and financial management professionals. The Center for Strategy Research, a Boston-based, independent, market research firm, conducted the interviews from May-June 2012.