Failure to Communicate Tops Enrollment Concerns
Employers said the areas that could stand to be improved in the benefit enrollment process are employee communications, health information and benefit decision support. On the other hand, employees were most concerned that the enrollment process was too complicated, according to a recent survey by consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
The survey of 67 organizations showed that employee communications topped the list of concerns for 63% of the respondents during enrollment, while 36% of employers cited engaging employees as their greatest difficulty, according to a press release on the survey.
What’s Working
Employers were more pleased with the transactional
components of benefits enrollment, with three-quarters
saying they were satisfied with the completeness and
accuracy of elections, but were less enthused with the
effectiveness of health-improvement information,
decision-support tools and costs and quality information.
“Annual enrollment has changed significantly at most
companies,” said Jeri Stepman, Watson Wyatt’s national
leader for health and welfare administration, in the
release. “It’s moved from a transactional or
registration-like process – where the goal has
been to automate and to increase efficiency – to an
engagement and decision-support process – where the goal
is to engage employees as benefits consumers.”
Process Complexity
According to employers, the complexity of the enrollment process and the number of plan changes were major concerns for their employees, with roughly a third (30%) of employers reporting problems in those areas.
Employer satisfaction improved – slightly – when
they had the internal and external resources to help
employees maneuver the complicated enrollment process.
Half of the organizations staffing the enrollment process
with only local HR representatives were either neutral or
dissatisfied with the process, and compared with 42% of
organizations that primarily relied on the use of
outsourcing providers to support employees.
The complete results of the survey report can be
purchased at
http://www.watsonwyatt.com/research/resrender.asp?id=2007-US-0003&page=1
.
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