You’ve spent countless hours and dollars putting together a comprehensive benefits program for your organization. You review it during onboarding and then again during Open Enrollment each year. So, why then, are you often inundated with questions about the information you’ve already provided? And why aren’t you seeing the levels of participation you expected?

It’s not what you’re offering; it’s most likely that your employees aren't educated on what’s available to them, so they don't know how to use their benefits. You’re not alone. Struggling to educate employees about benefits is a common problem for HR. Here’s why:

Benefits information is often only communicated once a year during Open Enrollment. If HR is only promoting benefits information during Open Enrollment, chances are it’s not sinking in. The information is dense and difficult to comprehend, and if employees don't understand what is available to them, they won't take advantage of their benefits.
Benefits are often communicated via the Old Communication Process.
Just getting the information out to employees doesn’t cut it anymore. Benefits are now more employee-driven than ever because decision making has shifted from the employer to the employee.
Lack of benefits knowledge can have a detrimental effect on employee engagement and retention. If employees don’t know what is offered to them, they’ll be less engaged and more likely to move on to a company they feel has better benefits. Benefits are becoming a key component in your attraction and retention of employees.

While making employees more aware of their benefits may sound like a daunting problem to solve, especially with all of the other work on your plate, it’s actually easier than you think. And it involves doing one thing: Sharing simple communications year-round.

How Fujifilm drove employee appreciation of benefits

Fujifilm had lots of programs and well-designed communications and incentives in place, but employees weren’t participating at the rate the company expected. They were ignoring the newsletters and posters that introduced them to these programs.

Using Airbo, Fujifilm created a central place to drive engagement in a wide variety of incentives, from wellness to benefits and healthcare. They created a habit of engagement by sending out communications on their benefits and programs every other week.

At first there was a fair bit of concern about communicating too often with employees, but as it turns out, a lot of people wanted to hear from HR more often. Consistent communications drove employees to engage more frequently, and by the second quarter of 2017, over 89% of employees had joined Airbo and more than 65% of employees who have joined log in monthly and are consistently seeing the various benefits that they are offered each month. Even better, 91% of employees stated that they had a greater appreciation for their benefits.”

Use Airbo to drive benefits appreciation at your organization

Are you looking for an easy way to share benefits information outside of Open Enrollment? Airbo is the easiest way to get this priority done in a matter of minutes and make a difference for your employees. The Tiles have already been created, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel trying to make a complex topic easy to understand. You simply copy the Tile to your Board, edit for your organization and send.

For an employee, the Tiles are simple and educational. Each Tile has an image for visual learners, is written in simple language, and asks a question to prove comprehension. Plus, each Tile takes only a minute to read and interact with, so an employee doesn't have to set aside a large part of their day to read a dense communication when they've got lots of other stuff to do.

Once you start educating employees about benefits, the most important piece is to keep it consistent. Each time you share your Tiles, include one Tile about a benefit that you offer. Employees will become accustomed to getting the information year-round, which should increase participation in your benefits and decrease the number of questions you get.

Get started:

Go to Benefits Appreciation in Airbo Explore
Select one of your benefits to highlight, such as dental care.
Copy the generic Tile by clicking “Copy to Board”.

4. Go to your Edit tab and the copied Tile from Explore will be in your Plan "Unscheduled" section. Edit the content of the Tile to align with your companies dental insurance plan.

5. Save the Tile.

6. Post it and share with your next set of Tiles.

A few things to remember:

Employees are not experts in benefits, so if you’re editing or creating your own Tiles, use simple language and try to keep them as short as possible.
If you're getting a lot of questions about one benefit, copy or create a Tile to answer the most frequently asked question. This will get employees in the habit of using the Tiles to answer questions instead of coming to you directly.
Once you get through all of your benefits, start revisiting the ones that you promoted earlier in the year. Each time you revisit a benefit, that’s another touch point toward your employees retaining the information.