How HCM Tech Can Help Your Clients Meet Employee Expectations for Benefit Elections

Monday June 14th, 2021

Estimated time to read: 2 minutes

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isolved’s Benefits’ Big Impact on Employee Experience report found that 67 percent of employees say open enrollment is extremely or moderately stressful. This shows that there is a big opportunity for you, as a trusted human resources (HR) business partner, to help your clients improve their benefit enrollment processes – and technology should play an important role. 

In fact, offering better technology that enables independent and electronic election of benefits was identified as the top way to improve the benefits experience by the full-time employees who participated in the aforementioned study. Providing self-service benefits elections, however, is far from the only way you can help your clients improve employee experiences. Here are a few other ways technology can play a supporting role:

Transparency

The ability to see a real-time cost analysis of benefit elections was selected as the most important tech feature for benefit enrollment according to 36 percent of employees in isolved’s study. This type of functionality makes it easy for employees to view per-paycheck deductions for benefits like health insurance and 401(k) contributions while they are making their election decisions. Breaking down the cost in this way is important for employees because the per-paycheck costs could influence their election choices as well as impact how much they decide to contribute to retirement plans

Streamlined Experiences

isolved’s data shows that more than half of employees would consider looking for a new job after a poor benefit experience. This means your clients are at risk of losing top talent if their enrollment processes are not optimized. 

One way to ease enrollment is with technology that streamlines elections. In fact, 95 percent of employees in isolved’s study say they would leverage technology that passively rolls over their benefit elections from the previous year. This type of capability is a convenience for employees, as those who were satisfied with their past elections are likely to verify those same elections for the upcoming year rather than navigate the entire enrollment experience again.

Ease of Use  

User-friendly technology is of upmost importance – especially because employees are increasingly expecting consumer-grade experiences when using technology at work. When it comes to benefits, the ability for employees to save progress when making elections shouldn’t be overlooked – especially considering that many employees may want to consult their friends and family before finalizing their choices. In fact, 73 percent of married employees consult their spouse when making their benefit decisions according to isolved’s report. Enabling employees to save their progress and come back to finalize their elections after discussing their options with their loved ones is a capability that improves the user experience and can reduce stress.

More than Just a Work Perk

In a year when employee experience is a priority for the majority of organizations, helping your clients improve benefit processes can result in positive strides toward providing an overall better experience for their workforce. Plus, with isolved’s data finding that poor enrollment experiences can have an impact on turnover – there should be even more motivation to improve processes. As a trusted business partner, it is essential to help your clients create employee experiences that are streamlined and stress free – and research shows that the right supporting technology can do just that.

These aren’t the only insights learned from isolved’s Benefits’ Big Impact on Employee Experience whitepaper. Download the resource now to learn more about employees’ expectations for benefits enrollment. 

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