If you haven't started already, now's a good time to start planning your 2009 benefits communication initiatives. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Newsletter: start a monthly or bimonthly newsletter (not quarterly, just doesn't come out often enough) dedicated solely to benefits and issues related to total compensation. Employees appreciate hearing about their benefits year-round instead of just at enrollment time. Fill the newsletter with practical tips on how to get the most from your benefits package, as well as wellness, retirement, and healthy living information. Much of this can easily be found on the web and is suitable for your use with an appropriate attribution. Try doing one online or one that is emailed so you can track readership better.
- Wellness Initiative: many of our client's plans are suffering from high costs due to a handful of claims. Most of these claims are related to issues about healthy living and wellness, though some are illness and disease related. Diabetes seems to be the biggest area for high claims lately. Launch a wellness initiative around living a healthier lifestyle. Posters, paycheck stuffers and messages, direct mail to the home, and lunch and learn series are great ways to share information with your employees about the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle. Note that it usually takes a while to change behaviors when conducting a wellness initiative unless you employ incentives (discounts on wellness center memberships, discounted healthcare rates, etc.) You can also employ disease management techniques through things like phone- and web-based nursing organizations who can help put together healthy lifestyle roadmaps for your employees to follow and conduct regular consultations to check on progress. Plus, with New Year's right around the corner, people are making resolutions that you can piggy back on and help make stick by giving your employees ways to accomplish them through the work environment.
- HR Community Forum: many of you work in organizations with multiple locations, meaning you have HR people spread all around the country. But even if you don't, starting an online forum/discussion group for your HR associates is a great idea and a way to introduce social media into your organization in a fairly painless manner. There are lots of tools out there, many of them free, for starting message boards. Feed Growth just published a great list of some of these tools this week. Once you have the forum setup and have the appropriate rules in place, you'll see your HR associates start to populate the message boards with relevant and helpful information that usually isn't housed anywhere else. Finally, a way to get knowledge off the desk and out of brains and onto a tool that everyone can share and benefit from.
These are just a few ideas to get you started. There are tons more that might make sense in your organization, from online benefits orientation and regular WebEx presentations to 401(k) participation initiatives. The list of possibilities is endless. The point is your company spends a lot of money on compensation in the form of benefits for your employees. Help both your company and your employees get the most out of those plans by increasing top of mind awareness, usage and participation.
