In previous columns, I’ve talked about the importance of personalized communication—giving members the information they need, when they need it. In our information-heavy and attention-span-light world, there is a small window of opportunity to connect with your employees.
For DJ Galvanizing Corp., getting employees to take responsibility for their DC pension plan means educating them one on one
"We are trying to solve the wrong problem,” Jacqueline Taggart, associate partner and regional practice leader with Aon Hewitt, told the audience in the Getting It Right: Tailoring Benefits Plan Communications session at Benefits Canada’s Benefits &; Pension Summit in Toronto. She was talking about benefits communications and why so many plan sponsors are struggling to make members care about their plans.
A picture really is worth a thousand words. That doesn’t mean you should turn your next pension statement or benefits plan newsletter into a four-page infographic—a one-way ticket to information overload. But when it comes to communicating with your plan members, chances are you should be doing a lot more showing and a lot less telling.
If you’re not educating your employees about the cost of their group benefits plan, you’re missing an important opportunity. That’s because most plan members simply don’t appreciate the true cost of their benefits coverage—to the detriment of themselves and the organization.
My youngest child, who’s now 17 months old, is enjoying experimenting with language. At this stage of development, her ability to communicate is still in its simplest form: mostly common words such as mama, dada, ball and the perennial favourite of children everywhere, No!
In his 2012 article, “Too complex to depict?”, Professor Henry Hu of the University of Texas Law School asks whether “too-big-to-fail” banks are too complex to describe and, if so, whether they might also be too complex to exist. The same questions could easily apply to some of today’s pension and benefit plans.
Whether powerfully good or virally bad, social media is here and it is time for plan sponsors to figure out how to use it to enthuse, educate and encourage members to boost their financial prowess.
In our fast-paced world where humans are bombarded every single day with thousands of messages, it’s no wonder that conventional communication strategies are quickly becoming obsolete. How can employers cut through the babble to encourage employees to fully leverage their benefits and retirement offerings, to maximize participation and to launch and sustain health and wellness programs?
How actively do you promote your benefits plan? Do you fire off emails reminding employees to get their annual dental check-up? Post warnings when claim deadlines are approaching? Tweet about the benefits of your massage therapy coverage?