HR Info
HR Pros Say Benefits-Related Communication Too Infrequent

When it comes to communicating effectively with employees about company-sponsored benefits, 41 percent of HR professionals think their companies communicate too infrequently while 32 percent feel their companies do communicate effectively. These were the top two responses to a recent poll conducted on the LifeCare web site and open to the HR staff members of its 1,500 client companies nationwide. Other responses to the poll (which asked “Do you believe your company communicates effectively to employees about their benefits and compensation?”) were as follows:

	We don't have the communications infrastructure in place to communicate effectively — 14%
	We use the wrong channels/methods — 5%
	We are not creative enough — 4%
	Not sure — 4%

“Many employers have become reluctant to communicate about their benefits offerings with real frequency, which is understandable given the current business climate,” says Peter G. Burki, LifeCare CEO and co-founder. “Lots of employers have had to share a series of hard messages with their people—cost sharing increases, for example, medical plan reductions or initiatives to scale back other types of benefits. So they'd rather not bring up the subject of benefits at all. Other employers are worried about 'spamming' their workers with e-mails or letters that might overwhelm employees in an information-overload business environment. But it's a mistake to avoid communicating about the positive aspects of your employee programs, especially when you spend valuable time and money providing them. And it's not spamming people when you're telling them how to use their benefits more effectively.”

Open the Lines of Communications
One suggestion that Burki offers HR professionals who want to promote their benefits programs more frequently: launch an employee survey. By asking employees to identify their awareness levels of various benefits, you'll often get the information you need to convince senior management to ramp up communications, he says. For instance, ask employees about the various ways your work/life programs benefits their families; ask at what level your company matches their 401(k) contributions; or ask if they know how much the company's medical costs have increased over the past few years. Most of the time, you'll find that employees' answers give you plenty of reasons to communicate.

Burki also suggests creating a multi-functional benefits communication task force to eliminate messages being sent to employees from various departments or functional areas. “Establish processes and guidelines that don't limit communications but rather ensure that they have a consistent look and tone, a sound release source and a steady schedule. Also, it's important to provide the proper people with notice and approval rights,” he adds. Above all, Burki advises setting clear guiding principles for the task force to enable communications—not set up barriers or become another bottleneck.

Other suggestions for more effective benefits communications:

	Develop a benefits “brand” for all communications, one that helps employees immediately identify these messages from other notices and communications.
	Set an over-arching benefits promotion calendar and group promotions around key themes.

LifeCare regularly helps its clients design effective communications strategies and campaigns to maximize awareness of its programs and increase clients' return on investment. Among the materials that LifeCare provides are post cards and wallet cards; creative e-cards and payroll stuffers; eye-catching monthly posters; and a yearly work/life calendar highlighting monthly themes (e.g., Healthy Aging Month), to name a few.