2 min read
Want to know the top four questions Total Reward Leaders are asking about financial wellbeing benefits today? We recently got together with compensation and benefit leaders from across the globe to explore strategies amidst evolving work methods, diverse employment models, and intense talent competition. From this insightful discussion, we've distilled the top four questions currently on the minds of Total Reward Leaders, aimed at tackling their most pressing workplace hurdles.
Q1. How can employers meet people where they are at?
Quote from the discussion: “We have done a good job putting in the basics around communication and solutions, but we need to do more to meet people where they are at.”
The conversation kept coming back to personalization. Across the full benefit experience, from package options, driving awareness, supporting benefit education, and understanding. It seemed the collective goal from the audience, was to enable better benefit behaviors by first understanding the employee's needs.
Our recommendation for employers to ‘meet people where they are at’ is to begin with assessment and insight. Find out your employees’ challenges, interests and behaviors. A good starting point is a financial health check-up, from there you can start to plan more proactive, personalized financial education experiences.
Q2. How can employers gather data on their employees to understand what motivates different groups and demographics?
Quote from discussion: “People are forgetting things they provide, we need to focus on all demographics, execs need to get involved and help too.”
When we asked the room how they gathered employee insights, people said ‘we talk to our EAP to get data’, and ‘track 401k loans and stats through our record-keeper.’ Reading between the lines from this conversation, it’s our understanding that employers are struggling to bring their employee data together, to identify how different individuals and demographics engage and utilize their benefits. Organizations need a single source of truth to start to solve some of those workplace challenges, e.g. 401k loans, childcare costs, student loans, paying fair wages, healthcare complexities and education on the HSA, stock education and taxation. Then for corporate organizations with front-line workers - it’s how they reach the entire workforces?
Our recommendation to ‘gather data on their employees to understand what motivates different groups and demographics’, is to consider working with a financial education provider, ie. nudge, to access segmented employee analytics and address challenges through personalized education.
Q3. How do employers balance their annual benefit communications and plan?
Quote from discussion, “Open enrolment is like drinking from a fire-hose, so we are figuring out ways to break down our benefit communication throughout the year.”
We were curious to know more about employers’ communication strategy. When we asked the audience, ‘Do you have a communication plan?’ and ‘How do you communicate your benefits?’, most employers focus their energy on open enrolment and tend to have a calendar of events (generally lunch and learns) that are promoted through targeted communications. Our takeaway here is that employers need support to map out the full year of benefit activity and communications – tailored using employee insights and data.
Our recommendation to ‘balance benefit communications and planning’ is to identify a technology, that can deliver benefit education throughout the year, to the right people, at times that matter most to them.
Q4. How can I make benefits more accessible?
Quote from group, “Most benefit pages are locked behind a username and password, they aren’t accessible to the workforce, their spouses can’t access them, and many give up if they forget their username and password.”
Another quote from the group, “During open enrolment most of the benefit inquiries received were from spouses.”
For people to feel well, it extends beyond us, because when our partner or family are struggling, we struggle too. This sentiment is understood by employers, but it seems there are a distinct lack of accessible benefits out there that support this need.
Our recommendation to ‘make benefits more accessible’ is to find a solution that is designed for inclusion and that takes a holistic view of people’s needs, challenges and circumstances, i.e. nudge is accessible to your full workforce and their loved ones. That means employees can invite up to five people to access personalized financial education, no matter where they are in the world, in the language that works for them, with content that is locally relevant.
If you’ve enjoyed this reflection, are you ready to take your research one step further and chat to nudge about your workforce challenges?
Find out how to personalize your employees’ financial wellness journey and explore: