The year is halfway over, which means most benefit plan years are at their midpoint as well. With that in mind, it’s never too early to start preparing for next year to ensure benefit offerings are useful to employees. You may be wondering, why does it matter that employees use their benefits? Isn’t it enough to simply offer good benefits and employees can choose to use them if they’d like to? The fact of the matter is, employees who are satisfied with their benefits are 70% more likely to remain at their employer than those who aren’t.

Before making decisions on which benefits to offer in the upcoming year, employers should evaluate how their current plans are performing. Employers who use EBC to administer their account-based benefits have easy access to reporting through their online account that can indicate their benefits’ effectiveness. Using our reporting, employers can evaluate their benefit plan utilization by reviewing participant balance and claims data. When it comes to balance data, looking at participants’ current balance versus elections can show how much participants have used their benefit at the midpoint of the year. If most balances are close to their annual elections, it’s probably a sign that participants either don’t understand their benefits or are forgetting to use them. The same would be true for claims data. Using our reporting, employers can calculate the percent of participants who have submitted a claim or used their Benefits Card during this plan year.

If it seems like participants are using their benefits, great! This is a good sign that your employees value and understand their benefits. However, a high percentage of participants not using their benefits may signal the need for additional education efforts or encouragement to use their benefits.

Increase your Educational Efforts

Simple benefits educational efforts can go along way with participants who might not be well-versed with benefits or may need a refresher. After all, most participants don’t have benefits top of mind year-round, rather it comes up as the end of the year draws closer and at that point it’s a scramble to use their benefits, especially if they’re going to expire. Since open enrollment time is when most employers focus on their communication efforts, it can be difficult for participants to retain all the information because it can be overwhelming to receive it all at once. Putting a proactive benefits communication strategy in place that spreads communications throughout the year can be an effective method to help participants retain information.

After choosing to take a proactive approach, employers should consider where participants physically work. Employers should choose a few communication channels that will reach everyone, regardless of whether participants work from home or at a physical location. Examples of communication channels might include sending recurring emails, intranet postings on timely benefit topics, and displaying posters and flyers.

Although it may seem daunting, employers aren’t on their own when it comes to benefits communications. Employers can download email templates, presentation slides, videos, webpages, and more that go over benefits education. EBC’s communication toolkits are available for our flexible spending account (FSA), health savings account (HSA), lifestyle spending account (LSA), and commuter benefit products. There is even one dedicated to our mobile app, EBC Mobile.

For more information on creating a proactive benefits communication strategy, read our previous blog on year-round communications.

Encourage Benefits Usage

After employers establish a communication plan to help with educational efforts, the groundwork is laid to begin encouraging them to use their benefits.

Simple steps employers can make to encourage participants to use their benefits include:

Share shopping resources. There are excellent third-party sources available that FSA, HSA, and some health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) participants can use to easily shop eligible health expenses. Our Where to Shop page houses resources that employers can share with participants to direct them to places to shop for eligible expenses.

Encourage use of new features. When product features are released, we alert employers and participants of these new features through email. Since participants may ignore or forget about these features, employers can reiterate these messages as needed. For example, EBC began offering a high-yield HSA earlier this year and sent participants and employers information on this. Reminders from the employer can be effective in helping HSA participants use and see the value of a higher interest rate on their HSA.

Send reminders about new benefits. When a new benefit is added to an employer’s offering, participants may be unfamiliar or unsure of how to use it. For example, if an employer added an LSA for the first time, participants may forget that they have access to it or know what they can use it on. Sharing a reminder on the expense categories will help participants recognize they have funds available and what they can use it on. Our communication toolkits include email templates, videos, presentations, posters, and fliers that can be used to introduce new benefits.

Plan for the Upcoming Year

Once employers complete their mid-year benefits check-in, it’s time to start planning for next year. Going into open enrollment season informed allows employers to remain in control and be confident that they’re offering the benefits needed to support and retain their employees.

Although monitoring current plan success is an important step, there are additional thought-out steps employers should take when considering their upcoming benefits offering.

Talk with employees to see what they want. After all, benefits are for the employees, so employers should make sure they’re offering what employees want. According to a recent Metlife study, there’s quite a large misconception between how satisfied employers think their employees are with their benefits (83%) versus how many employees are actually satisfied (62%).  Employers should take the time to verify their benefits are meeting the demands of employees and that company funds are being used effectively.

Consolidate to one third-party administrator (TPA). For employers who have COBRA with one TPA (or self-administer), and their FSA with another TPA, and an HSA with yet another TPA or bank, they’re likely adding extra work by having to coordinate with multiple vendors. Employers should take this time to not only reflect how they can help their employees with the benefits they offer but also think how they can create a better benefits experience for themselves. At EBC employers can manage their account-based benefits and COBRA through one easy-to-use online account. Additionally, the participant experience is better because participants can manage all eligible benefits on one card and see all account information through one platform.

Expand the benefits offering. The demands of the workforce are continually adding more to the list of “must-have” benefits and employers have to keep up to hire and retain strong employees. For example, the popularity of LSAs have skyrocketed lately because they can help reduce the financial burden on certain expenses. According to a recent EBRI study, 60% of employees are concerned with their financial well-being. LSAs are a great flexible benefit that can help fund purchases like fitness memberships, home office expenses, pet care, and much more to help support employee well-being.

Keeping this information in mind will put employers in a great spot to tackle benefits renewal with confidence. Using effective strategies ensures participants will use and value their benefits this upcoming year. If you’re a current EBC client with any questions regarding the renewal process, please contact your Client Account Representative.

Attend our Webinar!

On Thursday, August 31, 2023, Autumn Jakusz, one of EBC’s Client Service Managers, will present a webinar with further details on checking in on your benefits and preparing for the next plan year. In this webinar, we’ll cover:

• How to evaluate your current plan usage
• How to encourage participants to use their benefits
• Reminders for the second half of your plan year
• Strategies to consider for your upcoming benefit plans