To increase the chances that employees take advantage of their benefits, it is common for companies to host benefits fairs. Putting on an employee benefits fair, can interactively educate all of your employees at once about your benefits package. However, due to COVID-19 and the major shift toward remote work, it is crucial for employers to think of new, online ways to promote their benefits packages and educate employees on their options.
Why Benefits Fairs Are Less Popular in 2020
With the ongoing spread of COVID-19, over half of the country has shut down in an attempt to limit the spread of this disease and flatten the curve. Therefore, very few offices anywhere in the country are still having staff going into work every day. This is especially true in industries like finance and business services, where 57 and 53 percent of employees, respectively, are able to work from home during this pandemic.
With so few employees actually getting together in the same physical space to do their job, it makes it impossible to host anything like a benefits fair. While this might be disappointing to some companies, they should look at it as an opportunity to move their employee benefits educational material online.
With time being of the utmost importance, you should make sure to take steps to move your benefits fair online as soon as possible to help all of your employees that are now being forced to work from home.
How to Move the Benefits Fair Online
When it comes to how you can put your benefits open-enrollment online, there are many different options available. One of the most popular choices is to put this responsibility on the employee app. If you are one of the forward-thinking businesses that is taking advantage of the benefits of an employee app, then this is a great way to keep your open-enrollment alive.
You can upload all of the educational employee benefits material on the app so that employees can read through them at any time no matter where they are. There should also be a form or portal in the app that allows them to enroll in whichever benefits they prefer. Keeping the benefits enrollment right next to the benefits information will keep your employees ready and willing to easily enroll.
Another option is to move open-enrollment to a video conferencing session. If you are worried about your employees going to the employee app and reading the open-enrollment material on their own time, then this is a good alternative. Establish a date and time to get all of your remote employees on the same video conference call. Then take an hour or so to properly educate them on the various employee benefits, allowing adequate time for questions.
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Both of these methods provide an effective way to communicate your employee benefits in a digital atmosphere, rather than the traditional in-person benefits fair. To get help improving your employee benefits efforts in other ways, make sure to contact our team today.
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