5 Ways to Increase your Employee Benefits Uptake Rate
1. Offer them something valuable
2. Provide clear education on what you’re offering
3. Be frequent with your communication
4. Start an employee ambassador program
5. Collect data and make changes where necessary
Your HR department devotes their time, resources and budget towards crafting a solid benefits package for your employees. They know that benefits are an important element of how employees feel about their jobs and heavily impact their engagement at work, their loyalty to your organization and their overall level of job satisfaction.
However, their efforts (and your investment) in managing your organization’s benefits package aren’t achieving your goals if you aren’t seeing a high rate of employee participation in your programs.
Increasing your benefits uptake rate is so important: your organization can’t reap the rewards of offering a comprehensive benefits package if few are participating in your programs. Here are a few simple ways you can work to increase your uptake rate without spending a fortune or totally overhauling your programs.
1. Offer them something valuable
If improving your benefits uptake rate is a high priority for you, it helps to start from the top: are you sure your employees want what you’re offering?
The ultimate point of a benefits program is to provide your employees with something they genuinely want or need so that your organization can benefit from it in return (if top employees want what you’re offering, you’ll have a better chance of hiring them, keeping them happy and retaining them on a long-term basis). It’s been reported that employees who are satisfied with their perks and their employee benefits are four times more likely to be happy with their jobs. On the other hand, according to research by MetLife, 40% of employees say their employer is not currently offering a benefits program they find to be valuable. This points to a clear gap between what many employees want and what their employers are offering.
Think about if your benefits program is inclusive or not as well. Be sure that the benefits you’re offering create equal value for all your employees, regardless of their gender, age, sexual orientation, race or other demographic factors. This is particularly important if you work for a smaller business that doesn’t have the budget to offer a comprehensive benefits package that offers numerous different programs for employees to choose from.
This is why introducing one of QUBER’s financial wellness programs as a benefit to your employees is a no-brainer. QUBER helps employees from all backgrounds grow their savings through our innovative combination of match-based saving programs, financial literacy content and prize-linked saving. Employees can put what they save towards anything they want or need, whether it be car repairs, their next vacation, unexpected expenses or otherwise. Book your free demo of our platform to learn more about how QUBER will have your employees thanking you!
2. Provide clear education on what you’re offering
One of the most important steps you can take towards increasing your employee benefits uptake rate is to ensure your staff understands exactly what you’re offering. According to a study by Voya, 35% of employees didn’t understand what the benefits they were signing up for were during their most recent round of open program enrolment.
There are a variety of components you’ll need to consider depending on what programs you’re offering, such as clear instructions on how employees are expected to register and logistical information on how things will work. If there are any deadlines your employees will have to keep in mind, such as a final date to register by, be sure these are very clear from the start. However, don’t forget to make the simpler stuff clear as well: what is the program you’re offering? How does it help your employees, and why is it beneficial for them to participate?
Another tactic to employ is to work closely with your benefits provider to gain a clear understanding of what (if any) kind of communication your employees will be receiving from them. If there are technical components to the program, you may need to rely on them to provide your employees with specifics on what’s expected of them. You might find that working in tandem with your provider to communicate important information to employees is the most effective course of action.
3. Be frequent with your communication
Your employees have a ton on their plate beyond their responsibilities at work each day. Even though it’s of value to them, signing up for your benefits program isn’t likely to be top-of-mind for them like it is for your HR team. That’s why it’s so important to be consistent with your reminders to complete their registration for whatever programs you’re offering.
Consider the different kinds of nudges you may need to send to your employees to keep them focused. For example, you may want to create a series of emails to send to employees who have gotten part way through registration but haven’t completed it. Some might have gotten distracted and simply forgot to finish the process, while others might need some kind of assistance to continue and didn’t want to reach out for help. You might want to send a different series of reminders to those who haven’t started the process at all, or to those who have finished to let them know what to expect next.
4. Start an employee ambassador program
Sometimes employees feel uncertain about participating in a benefits program, even if it’s coming from a familiar source like their employer. Not all employees are completely comfortable going to their HR representative for assistance if it can be avoided.
Instead, having a team of employees on your side who have participated in the program (or are well-educated on it) can make a major difference in building confidence amongst those who might be skeptical about joining. It’s been reported by Convince & Convert that a recommendation from a friend or family member makes 83% of Americans more likely to purchase that product or service. When considering how this might apply to a benefits program, it’s clear to see how the opinions of a trusted co-worker could go a long way in influencing an employee’s decision to participate in a benefits program or not. Employees can help lend legitimacy to your programs and spread the word about the pros of joining. Having an ambassador program means you can also set aside some time at work specifically for employees to help others enrol in the program while there are people around to help.
5. Collect data and make changes where necessary
With all important goals, measuring your progress is essential to ensure that you’re on track to achieve what you set out to accomplish. Your benefits programs (and all the processes that are necessary to get employees involved) are no different. Collecting data is the only way to monitor progress with your uptake rate and highlight areas that might need improvement.
Some metrics will be obvious indicators of your success, such as your overall uptake rate amongst your eligible employee population. However, you should also drill down to learn more about steps that are specific to your offerings. For example, data may reveal that a great deal of employees drop off after a certain stage of a registration process. That might point to a number of different conclusions, such as the specific stage of registration being too complex, that it requires information people don’t often have on hand (highlighting the need for consistent nudges) or that there might be some kind of technical error occurring if your program is accessible online. Collecting further data on why people keep stopping at that point will help your HR team understand where the pain points are and come up with solutions to get around the problems.
Final thoughts on increasing your uptake rate
If you want to see the greatest return on your investment in employee benefits, ensuring your organization’s uptake rates are high is in your best interest. Employee participation can be encouraged in plenty of different ways, though it’ll be up to your HR department to determine what makes the most sense for your team. Ultimately, taking the time to enact some of these changes where they’re needed will pay dividends for your business!