Lessons From High-Performing Open Enrollment Campaigns

Open enrollment periods are an important, but often chaotic time for HR teams and employees each year. While with the proper planning, managing all the processes and deadlines associated is quite manageable, for unprepared companies, it can often be a high-stress period where everyone is scrambling to get things done while meeting important deadlines.

However, many companies have discovered ways to ensure their open enrollment windows open and close without a hitch, while keeping both HR teams and employees informed, organized, and on task.

Below, we’ll cover some of the most common issues businesses face during open enrollment, as well as effective solutions you can apply to avoid them.

Overcoming Communication Gaps

A common problem that businesses face during and around open enrollment is having poor communication practices. This often leads to last-minute instructions being released to teams about various administrative deadlines, and not enough time to provide accurate information around benefits coverage options.

When this is left to continue, every year that goes by, teams can get more disconnected from their objectives or employees are left relying on outdated information that slows down processes for HR teams.

Part of the solution for avoiding this problem is to have a healthy level of communication between HR teams and employees throughout the year - not just during open enrollment windows. Employees should know what their tasks are well in advance, especially when it comes to choosing different benefit options.

Having a centralized platform for helping to manage email reminders and notifications of upcoming dates and having active discussions with employees during company general meetings or one-on-ones can help to avoid everyone from being caught off guard as open enrollment approaches and ensure everyone is well informed to prevent unnecessary delays.

Leveraging Best-of-Breed Technology

An important element for all businesses when carrying out open enrollment activities is being able to rely on benefits technology to help simplify and automate various workflows. However, if the technology is outdated or hasn’t been properly configured, HR teams can quickly get buried under a mountain of questions from employees or carry out more manual processes than they should.

Best-of-breed BenAdmin platform can help to avoid this issue by creating a more seamless solution HR teams can leverage to help automate a significant portion of their open enrollment process while also giving employees access to the information they need to make smarter coverage decisions.

By providing self-service functionality to employees when it comes to their benefits plans, available coverage options, and submitting necessary changes through open enrollment, it helps to significantly reduce the administrative burden on HR teams. This allows them to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as ensuring ACA reporting is submitted on time. 

Prioritizing Employee Education

How well employees understand their benefits coverage and how changes impact their premiums can make all the difference when trying to create a more effective open enrollment process. Unfortunately, however, not all businesses prioritize this form of education for their teams.

When businesses treat benefit education throughout the year as a low priority, it often leads to more confusion as open enrollment windows begin to open. This can lead to more questions being sent to HR teams at once, making it much more difficult for them to stay focused on their critical tasks.

Fixing these issues requires a shift in mindset when it comes to the importance of employee education surrounding benefits and their responsibilities during open enrollment. Throughout the year, businesses should provide helpful resources as part of the new employee onboarding processes, as well as ongoing employee development. These resources can include having an accessible library of explaining videos surrounding benefits options, helpful comparison charts when choosing between multiple coverage options, and monthly premium calculators.

Mitigating Administrative Burden

If businesses don’t have a clear plan in place for how they’re going to organize and execute their open enrollment workflows, it often leads to mistakes being made and deadlines being missed. Employee submissions come in at the last minute, and then HR teams are left scrambling, trying to validate them while still juggling other important business priorities.

All of this ends up being a very reactive business management approach that can create more work for everyone. A much better approach is to map out every task, deadline, and accountability months in advance so that everyone is on the same page by the time open enrollment opens up. This advanced preparation also creates more opportunities to automate the data flow between the business, payroll providers, and insurance carriers to help ensure better accuracy while saving on time and resources.

Navigating Compliance Issues

Dealing with legal and regulatory requirements is an important responsibility for HR teams as they navigate open enrollment periods. Failure to meet requirements outlined by the ACA or ERISA can lead to major penalties. 

Businesses can solve this problem by working closely with their benefits technology provider and broker. Having a benefits technology solution that’s built from the ground up to help businesses follow security protocols when handling sensitive employee data not only protects the company from legal exposure but also keeps your employees' information safe.

Make Your Open Enrollment Periods Seamless

Open enrollment periods are an essential time of year for all businesses, but they shouldn’t be something that significantly impacts standard operations. By understanding the common mistakes companies make during these time frames and how to avoid them, you’ll ensure your next open enrollment period is seamless for both your HR teams and employees.

Author: Frank Mengert

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, a leading provider of employee benefits solutions. Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.

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