6 Open Enrollment Lessons from Benefits Leaders 

Open enrollment season is upon us, and benefits leaders face the annual challenge of getting employees to take notice. You’ve probably heard the phrase “communicate early and often” a hundred times, but what tactics actually move the needle?

From board games at benefit fairs to leveraging your own experiences to make your program come to life, Lantern clients and team members shared ideas for livening up your strategy and helping your messages stick. Which ones will you try this year?

1. Let your Employees Do the Talking

Employees are inundated with information during open enrollment, and much of that information can fall flat, especially when they don’t have an immediate need for a particular benefit.

It can be even harder to sell employees on benefits that sound “too good to be true.” Adrienne Lee-Jones, Director of Payroll and Benefits at Loomis, suggests letting employees share their own experiences to build credibility. Word of mouth beats a flyer every time.

“They give it a try and wow, they become my champions because they’re saying how great the experience is and how much they appreciate the service,” Lee-Jones says about Lantern.

Despite being a benefits leader herself, Lee-Jones also uses her own surgery experience to promote benefits in an honest, human way.

“I’m supposed to tout,” Lee-Jones says. “But the fact that I can say, ‘Hey, not only am I saying this because of my role, but I’m saying this because of my experience and here are some other people who can also speak to it.’ It makes a huge, fabulous difference.”

2. Encourage Vendors to Get Creative with Open Enrollment

Employees may avoid vendor tables because they assume someone’s trying to sell them something. The vendors who stand out at benefits fairs go beyond staffing a table and find fun ways to bring people in.

Christina Taylor, Client Success Manager at Lantern, likes to bring out an old-school favorite to draw a crowd.

“A lot of us will bring an Operation game, the game that buzzes you if you pick the wrong knee bone or something out of the little guy. It’s very nostalgic for adults to play that game,” she says.

If you want to leave a lasting impression, make open enrollment memorable and fun.

“Don’t make open enrollment a drudge that somebody’s like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do this again. It’s that time of year.’ It should be like, ‘Oh, what’s happening with open enrollment this year?’” Lee-Jones says.

3. Turn your Benefits Fair Into an Unforgettable Event

A benefits fair doesn’t have to feel like just a room full of vendor tables with neat stacks of flyers and a few branded pens. Give employees another reason to show up, and then use that foot traffic to introduce them to their benefits.

Local gyms, massage therapists and med spas will often participate for free exposure. Taylor recalls how one employer brought in free facials and a massage chair.

“There was a line. People said they have it every year and they love it. It’s a 10-minute shoulder massage. It really went a long way. That encouraged more people to come in and talk to the other vendors why they waited,” she says.

4. Ditch the Benefits Jargon

Lee-Jones recommends explaining benefits to employees the way you would to a friend. Skip the acronyms and industry jargon. Use real-world examples to show employees how they might actually use a benefit.

“Take away all the big fancy words and just say, ‘This is what this offers to you,’ in very simple terms,” Lee-Jones says.

5. Talk About Benefits All Year, Not just in October

Benefits communications shouldn’t start or stop with open enrollment. Keep benefits visible all year so employees understand their options when they really need care.

Loomis built a benefits app to engage employees year-round, while also reaching a large employee cohort that works in the field and lacks easy access to email.

“It’s right there at their fingertips. I can do push notifications through that app, but I also know that it doesn’t matter where the employee’s sitting,” Lee-Jones says. “They have our Loomis information or enrollment guide, everything they need that’s benefit-related sitting right there in that app.”

6. Test your Messaging Like a Marketer

Small experiments with subject lines, send times and communication channels can reveal what employees open, click and ultimately act on. You might find that one subject line outperforms another or that a postcard reaches employees who consistently overlook email.

Rather than sending the same message to everyone, target communications based on the benefits or services employees are most likely to need. Lantern’s own testing of targeted, need-based outreach drove a 20% lift in member engagement.

“It ultimately creates a personalized message based on the need for an individual, so that it’s not a broad blast of all marketing material to all members that we cover,” says Kaitlin Quinn, Head of Enterprise Data and Analytics at Lantern. “It’s very specific to those individuals who truly do have a need.”