Do you remember all the resolutions you made last January — at work and in your personal life — that were supposed to make this a more organized, more effective, healthier year? Do you even want to remember?
Neither do we.
Something like 91% of New Year’s resolutions fail, typically within a few weeks. But we’re here to tell you that this year can be different.
No, we can’t help you commit to an exercise schedule. What we can do, however, is share strategies for achieving your HR team’s goals this year.
xx(And we all know that reducing work stress can lead to a healthier lifestyle — so maybe we can help you shed a few pounds.)
Resolution #1: Educate About Benefits Year-Round
Last year, you swore that you would keep benefits top-of-mind among your employees throughout the year to boost utilization and reduce confusion when open enrollment came around. Unfortunately, your team got caught up in other things, and, as in previous years, you ended up sharing most of your benefits messaging during open enrollment season.
This year, you’re going to start early.
How to stick with it: Create a year-round benefits communication calendar and plan to share bite-sized relevant messages a couple of times each month. Tie each month’s messaging to whatever is on employees’ minds that month (such as financial wellness in April).
Use this free year-round benefits communications calendar for inspiration.
Resolution #2: Get More Employees to Enroll in Your HDHP
You know that high-deductible health plans are excellent options for many of your employees, especially the younger and healthier ones. You also understand that these plans can save your organization a significant amount.
Nevertheless, employees continue to choose to pay for more health coverage than they need. Employees don’t understand the value of HDHPs, and the term “high deductible” sounds intimidating.
This year, you hope to enroll more employees than ever in your HDHP plan.
How to get it done: Help your employees visualize how an HDHP would fit their needs by offering a decision-support tool.
With just a few simple questions, a decision-support tool like PLANselect can accurately model for employees how much each plan will cost them (premiums and health spending) and recommend the optimal choice. PLANselect also provides predictive analytics capabilities to help your HR team forecast how various plan choices would impact your bottom line.
Resolution #3: Ditch the In-Person Benefits Fair
Your benefits fair this year was a bust. Very few employees attended, and those that did complained about high-pressure sales tactics and a lack of useful information. Your company’s remote employees and most of your hybrid workers didn’t show up at all.
How can you avoid a similar space- and money-wasting debacle this year?
What to do instead: Host a virtual benefits fair.
Virtual benefits fairs bring all the positive aspects of the fair experience to always-on digital spaces: information about new and existing plan offerings, opportunities to speak with HR personnel and vendor reps, educational webinars, and more. Best of all, virtual benefits fairs are accessible remotely, anytime, anywhere, allowing all your employees to visit at their convenience.
Click here to learn about setting up a virtual benefits fair during your next open enrollment period.
Resolution #4: Streamline Your Onboarding Process
There’s no other way to say it: Your new hires are taking too long to get up to speed. Too many of the typical new hire’s first days on the job are consumed with administrative chores — enrolling in benefits, learning company policies, getting set up with IT equipment and software — when new hires could be training and getting to know their teams.
You anticipate several more rounds of hiring this year. How can you help your newest team members get settled in and become productive as quickly as possible?
The solution: An onboarding microsite. Onboarding microsites (or onboarding portals) gather everything new hires need to get started into one accessible location. You can share your onboarding microsite with new hires a few weeks before they start work so that they can get some of those tedious administrative chores out of the way.
Onboarding microsites can also include sections on company culture, introductory videos from coworkers, onboarding checklists, and fun features, such as playlists designed to calm first-day jitters.
Resolution #5: Reach More Employees
You don’t even want to think about how many emails you sent last year and how often they went unread. Don’t blame your employees. We all get so many emails nowadays that it’s almost impossible to clear our inboxes before the end of the day.
Still, you have important information to share with your company’s employees, especially regarding benefit options, the enrollment process, and enrollment deadlines. This year, you resolve to break through the noise.
Try something new: Texting your employees. Text messages see average open rates of nearly 100% (compared to emails, which hover around 20%). Just be sure to brush up on the SMS regulations before sending your first employee text.
(Flimp’s WorkforceTXT platform makes texting your employees simple. Get started now, and you can be sending your first text within 48 hours.)
Happy New Year From Flimp!
We hope we’ve shown you some easy strategies for keeping your HR-related New Year’s resolutions this year. Visit us frequently throughout the year for more helpful HR communications tips and tools.
