How Employers Can Incorporate Corporate Culture into the Benefits Enrollment Process

Companies can get the biggest bang for their benefits buck by treating the entire process as something they own. Matching offers to your values can help engage employees, boost adoption and reinforce the positive side of your culture, which is a top reason that candidates choose and stick with an employer.

If you’re considering new benefits or want to increase engagement with your existing ones, here are a few thoughts on how to make them support your corporate culture.

Customize the Enrollment Process

Benefits programs and offers allow most companies to offer multiple enrollment periods, which your provider might call “off-cycle” enrollment, throughout the year. This gives you a chance to provide employees with longer enrollment windows that make it easier to share details about your wellness initiatives.

Employees will appreciate being given time to learn about their benefits and options without feeling rushed into a choice. This is also a beneficial approach for when you launch a new initiative as part of a corporate culture movement, such as a wellness program to promote employee health, by letting people educate themselves and make desirable elections.

Choose Offers That Match Your Values

A company’s values and culture affect employees in many ways, and are likely a factor in the specific set of benefits you offer. Create a clearly defined list of values and reasons to help make this case to employees so they can trace a cultural element to each option.

Technology and benefits providers often can make this list creation easier, if you ask. Most will have a variety of industry research and case studies related to offering benefits in line with your company’s values. If you have multiple options or are unsure of what employees value most in your culture, ask them directly. Surveys are a useful tool to see if anything is missing.

Brand Your Benefits to Showcase Your Corporate Culture

Messaging is the primary way you will be able to demonstrate how an offered benefit reflects a larger value or commitment your company has made. It can make the most significant impact when it is clear, consistent and feels normal.

So if you call your team “associates” during meetings or in company-wide emails, do so in all of your benefits messages. Switching to “employees” may make it feel alien or disingenuous. You’ll also want to match the type of message to what’s normal, which may mean mobile messages instead of handouts or infographics instead of long emails.

Use the values you defined earlier in what you say and how you share each benefit. For instance, if you’re making a sizeable preventive care push, lead the first message with your wellness-related mission.

Keep It Going

Just as employee training doesn’t stop when someone is hired or promoted, benefits and wellness initiatives shouldn’t stop at open enrollment. Your partners are an invaluable resource here, with most offering free webinars, monthly calls, health fairs or help in creating your messaging.

Disclaimer:  This content is strictly informational and should not be used as specific advice on insurance products, legal, accounting, and/or tax related matters. Insureds should always contact the appropriate licensed professional for their insurance, legal, accounting, or tax needs.