Five Tips to Increase the Effectiveness of Benefits Communications with Employeesby Chris Lee (Accompass) Designing a benefits package that fits the needs of a company is important and so is communicating about these benefits with employees. Without clear and simple messaging, employees may have the Cadillac of benefits packages and pension plans, but not fully appreciate them. Benefits and retirement plans can be complex and hard to understand for many employees. Ineffective communications can lead employees to make poor decisions or worse, no decisions at all, which can be detrimental to their retirement. Thoughtful communications can help employees value and understand their benefits. Between daily emails, meetings and workloads, employees are busy to say the least. Luckily, there are a few simple tricks to communicate with employees about their benefits and pensions effectively. Keep the key message top of mind – what’s the call to action? Ensure that what employees need to do or know is centre stage. Keep the main message simple and clear and make it one of the first pieces of information the employee will see. Tier information, making the most critical point the most prominent so it has a chance to be absorbed. When employees skim an email between meetings, they won’t lose sight of why it’s important. Use a ‘less is more’ mentality –a long-winded, content-heavy email regarding a pension plan might not be fully read… or read at all. If employees don’t have time to review a lengthy email, they might set it aside with the intent to review it later, which increases the chances of that email getting lost in the shuffle. It’s likely that the same point could be made in fewer words, and read in much less time. Condense the content so that employees don’t feel as though reading it is a burden. Create structure with bite-sized portions – back to skimming, help employees by breaking out the message. Lists and steps help create order, something the brain loves to see. Employees can get the information they want or need quickly, even while skimming. Leave out the HR jargon – not everyone understands investments, benefits and ‘HR jargon’ so use plain language to engage with employees. Often, when pensions are an individual’s bread and butter, they don’t realize that the content isn’t understandable for some. Take a step back and try to write the communication with that in mind. Add some personality – HR messages can start to sound robotic. Keep it professional, but don’t be afraid to add personality and give it an approachable human feel – it can help lighten the tone and engage employees. At the end of the day, there’s no perfect formula when it comes to communicating with employees, but take the time to create a clear message and break down the more technical content into a concise and engaging communication and it could help gain and maintain employees’ attention. |