With annual open enrollment just around the corner for many employers, Human Resources leaders are fine-tuning communication strategies to find the right mix of education and engagement to capture the attention of their employees.

There are many different communication approaches that stand the test of time—making information easily accessible, keeping the content at an appropriate reading level to help improve comprehension and sending something home to ensure you reach key decision-makers. As you put the finishing touches on your enrollment communication strategy for this fall, consider this trio of tips to help deliver a campaign that resonates with a modern, diverse workforce:

1. Deliver a Human Connection
   In an increasingly digital and virtual world, human connections maintain their appeal. This means live benefits fairs and events are back. Consider this: Las Vegas—the epicenter of conferences and conventions—has caught up to pre-COVID levels, with October 2022 visitors exceeding October 2019.¹ Hosting an in person event delivers more than information—it gives you the opportunity to make personal connections and create meaningful interactions with your employees. For even better reach, invite their families.
   In Practice:
   One of our customers used a recent live event to spotlight and promote their new mental health benefit vendor, allowing employees to ask questions and interact with specialists in a stigma-free environment.
2. Consider Your ESG Priorities
   With more and more organizations sharing environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, you have a great opportunity to reflect those priorities in benefits communications. Data shows that 66% of employees question how genuine some of their organization’s sustainability initiatives are.² One way to show your commitment is by using sustainable packaging. Use print selectively—and when you do, choose 100% recycled material or eco-friendly paper.
   In Practice:
   To help reinforce their environmental focus, one of our customers uses paper made with post-consumer materials embedded with wildflower seeds in their enrollment mailings—so employees can plant them after they take note of key dates!
   
3. Lean Into Technology
   Think beyond emails, PDFs and flipbooks for your digital strategy. Consider this: According to data from Mailchimp, the average email open rate for all industries was 21.33%.³ At the same time, text messages have an impressive average open rate of 98%.⁴ Similarly, social media trends show that shortform videos capture attention—as long as they’re concise. In fact, you can refer to the TikTok Ads Manager to see they recommend no longer than 60 seconds.5 Short messaging through text and video can add impact to your multi-media strategy with digestible bites of information.
   In Practice:
   One of our customers created a benefits video library that offered a collection of short features about different benefits so employees could choose what they were most interested in and create a custom “playlist.”
   Bonus Tip:
   The average adult has an attention span of 47 seconds when working on a screen.⁶ Keep your Open Enrollment messages as brief as possible.

¹ The Guardian, 2023

² Forbes, 2023

³ Mailchimp

⁴ Gartner

⁵ TikTok

⁶ Advances in Physiology Education

Erika Illiano

Partner, Communication Practice Leader