As we enter a new decade, it is time for companies to do a significant overhaul regarding how they help employees take advantage of their various benefits. After all, only about half of all Millennial employees report having a good understanding of their workplace benefits. If companies want their employees to start using the benefits they are offered, employers need to do everything they can to increase this number. Here are some of the best strategies that you can use to make sure that your employees are taking advantage of their benefits in 2020.
Start Making Challenges and Incentives
A great way to motivate people is to give them challenges to work towards. You can apply this tactic to help increase the level of engagement for certain employee benefits as well. For example, if one of the benefits is some kind of health and wellness program, such as access to a gym, then you can easily set up an incentive program to encourage employees to utilize their benefits.
For example, if every employee who reached their monthly fitness goal gets a gift card to somewhere they enjoy, then they will likely be much more involved in the health and wellness part of their benefits package. Couple this with your organization’s existing perks and discounts program, and you will boost engagement with these programs and improve the quality of life for your employees.
Develop Internal Communications to Educate Employees
One of the biggest roadblocks of getting employees to take advantage of their benefits is that many of them are not even aware of the benefits available to them. In fact, over 30 percent of companies reportedly offer no education on what type of benefits their employees receive. It is hard for employees to take advantage of benefits like telemedicine if they do not even know it is offered.
That is why companies should do their part to reach out to their employees and communicate the specifics regarding their benefits. The best way to do this is to sit down and create a detailed internal communications plan surrounding employee benefits information. Once they are fully informed about all of their benefits, employees are much more likely to start actively using them.
Create an Easy Sign-Up Process
Because of technology and other evolved systems, employees have adapted to efficiency. Because of this, often have little patience or willingness to engage in something that is unnecessarily complicated. This includes the enrollment process for workplace benefits.
So, if your company has not embraced the benefits of easy, online self sign-up yet, you are definitely sacrificing the number of employees who would otherwise take advantage of the benefits. If you move your enrollment program over to an online platform that is easy for employees to use, you will immediately see a rise in employee engagement in regards to benefits.
With the help of these three effective tactics, you will be able to help employees take advantage of their benefits in 2020. To help improve other forms of workplace communication and relationships in 2020, contact our team today.
