Effective Plan Communication

1. In a highly competitive market for talent, you want to position your various plans as part of your total rewards program so that employees clearly understand the totality of their compensation and won’t run off to join an organization that offers more salary, but lower healthcare coverage. Think about how to tie together the communication of each component of your program—retirement, compensation, benefits—so that employees see the linkage.

2. Your strategic plan should:

• Anticipate the needs and expected actions of various audiences within your employee group
• Have measurable goals tied to your business goals
• Have activities and materials driven by what you want each audience to know, understand, feel and believe, and do

3. Communication efforts will be extensive in the first year of a program launch in order to ensure a positive employee experience. While you can expect that more limited resources will be required in subsequent years, ongoing communication will be necessary to keep your plans strong and build employee appreciation.

4. Understand that you may have to address tough messages head on, especially if you’re doing any belt-tightening. If one of your business objectives is to manage future costs, your point should be clear and straightforward. Employees need to understand the end goal and the reasons for change, as well as how they are expected to share responsibility for the plan.

5. Pay attention to the look and style of the communication materials. They need to be “approachable.” They need to help employees sit down and make decisions. They also need to fit the culture and style of communication in the organization. The launch of a new plan may be the perfect opportunity to develop a new visual identity or brand.

On the launch of a new plan, your communication strategy will consist of various components, likely including: an announcement, some kind of overview to introduce the plan, a launch package, and detailed information about the plan.

Follow-up communication can cover a number of items, some of which are helpful to employees (i.e., solicitation of feedback on the online benefits enrollment process, where to find details regarding coverage), others of which are important (i.e., reminders of how to use the health spending account or update benefits after life events), while certain topics are essential (i.e., re-enrollment information, changes to retirement plan investments). What’s critical is to ensure that members have the information they need, when they need it and that the plan continues to be relevant and meet employees’ needs.

More employers are realizing that it may be important for the plan communication strategy for new hires differ somewhat from that for existing employees. With so much information coming at them at the start of a new job, recent recruits may be overwhelmed and miss important information about enrolling in benefit and retirement programs. A simplified, step-by-step guide (paper or online) that they can refer to throughout the onboarding period may be in order.

A successful communication plan is multi-faceted and strategic. It takes into account the organization’s total rewards program, its brand and what will motivate employees to take the desired action. When done properly, communication not only enhances employees’ understanding and appreciation of their plan, it helps achieve corporate objectives.

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Sarah Beech is Managing Principal, Consulting for Hewitt Associates in Canada.