Are Your Employee Benefits Underutilized?  

Boost Participation with this 3-Point Plan

Sound familiar? You’re an HR pro who values employee benefits and has worked hard to curate a package reflecting the needs of your workforce. You’ve considered dozens of providers, convinced the C-suite that investments in workforce well-being pay-off, and launched new benefits with appropriate fanfare and marketing.  Yet despite your efforts, utilization rates seem stubbornly low and have you second guessing your efforts.

If you can relate to this, you are not alone.  Research by the consulting firm Gartner has shown that, on average, only a quarter of employees with access to well-being benefits (physical, financial and emotional/mental) actually use them.  

And while utilization rates should never be the sole measure of a benefit’s success (see our guide to accurately measuring ROI), we know that the well-being of many more employees could be elevated with increased participation.  There’s no silver bullet, but we can suggest the following 3-point plan as a good place to start.

1 – Nudge (Creatively)

The number one reason employees cite for not using employee benefits is lack of awareness. This has been consistent over time and documented in numerous studies  despite increased efforts by HR teams and new tech-enhanced enrollment campaigns.  

To tackle this stubborn issue in an era of information overload, we suggest building an awareness campaign that functions outside of the standard enrollment cycles and methods, and embeds creative nudges into a year-round calendar.  Consider the following:

• Company Events and Gatherings

Utilize your company picnic, mental health awareness week, or even small team building retreats as opportunities to feature a speaker, a short video, or print advertising highlighting relevant benefits and conveying ease of access.

• Employee Surveys

Whether your company conducts surveys on workplace satisfaction, well-being, or even holiday party planning, every workforce survey offers a great opportunity to highlight your company’s commitment to the health and wellness of its workers.  Make the most of these opportunities by including a question related to awareness of benefits and a follow-up plug providing a quick synopsis of what you offer (and an access link).

• Team Meetings

Team leads and managers are your go-to allies when it comes to promoting employee benefits.  Arm managers with easy-to-distribute promotional material and bit of coaching on the productivity pay-off of well utilized benefits.  

2 – Normalize (Continuously)

Employee benefits and HR are nearly synonymous in many employees’ minds, but the association with HR may be hurting, not helping, to drive utilization.  In order to de-stigmatize the use of well-being benefits, the more you can encourage workers to promote benefits to one another, the better.  

In addition, engaging team leads and managers as both champions of well-being and users of related benefits adds additional reassurances that the need for support is both normal and common across respected leaders. 

If you need some inspiration, consider this example in the Harvard Business Review  highlighting a successful two–pronged “normalization” initiative at the company Gentech:

• Six leaders were asked to record videos during which they shared personal stories of challenges they had faced and the employee supports that helped them. 
  
• A network of 300 internal mental health champions were recruited as volunteers to “educate, encourage, and provide assistance to other employees” and to share knowledge about the company’s benefits.  

The success of any normalization effort will require training managers and leaders, many of whom may not fully understand the importance and variety of well-being supports your company offers. 

Consider developing conversation guides and a repository of user-stories that highlight for managers the many real-world uses of otherwise theoretical “benefits” (e.g., creating an educational plan, a vacation budget tracker, a dietary plan, or a retirement plan comparison chart).

3 – Streamline Access

All of your efforts will hit a brick wall if employees, motivated by your nudges and inspired by managers and peers, encounter difficulty when they finally take action and attempt to access a benefit.  Slow response times or an engagement model that relies too heavily on frustrating or impersonal technology can quickly sap the motivation of an employee who had mustered up the courage to contact an unknown provider.

While you may not have control over a benefit provider’s technology, response times or phone systems, you do determine which providers to partner with and which to let go.  Actively monitor and test the access experience provided by each of your providers.  If you find problems, engage the provider in improving the experience.  If they can’t work with you or resist improvements, it may be time to let them go.

WorkLife Partnership specializes in providing outstanding services to employees and unparalleled partnership to HR teams. We are invested in the success of the investments you’ve made in employee well-being.