Alyssa Zeff:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I am Alyssa Zeff, your Broadway musical junkie, amateur boxer. By amateur, I mean, I have a cool set up in my basement now that I'm using. I'm here with Courtney Swartzel, who is a manager here at Davis & Company. Hey, Court.

Courtney Swartzel:
Hey.

Alyssa Zeff:
Courtney is a happy camper, sixties music lover, and novice rock climber. You may recall, Courtney was with us last year on Employee Buzz talking about big meetings. Today, we are going to talk about communicating benefits. So, just so we're all on the same page, and our listeners are on the same page when we say benefits, what are we talking about, Court?

Courtney Swartzel:
We're focusing on health, medical, and financial benefits, and wellness programs.

Alyssa Zeff:
Okay, got it. Now I understand the space that we're in. Why is communicating benefits effectively so important?

Courtney Swartzel:
It's important because it's part of the employee experience. What makes your company a great place to work? What brings in talent? You also want your benefits communications to not only reach employees but let them know what they need to do and when. So, timing is important. For example, the open enrollment period. It's very brief. Try to highlight action items so employees can easily make decisions on what they need to act on.

Alyssa Zeff:
Exactly. Timing is important, but open enrollment is not the only time to communicating benefits. We still need to communicate the benefits throughout the year. So employees are aware of all the programs that are part of their benefits package and able to take advantage of them throughout the year.

Courtney Swartzel:
Yes.

Alyssa Zeff:
What do you think communicators struggle with the most when it comes to communicating benefits?

Courtney Swartzel:
Over-communicating. Providing way too much information instead of linking out to content or breaking up content. At Davis & Company, we often say, "Deliver communication in a bite snack meal approach." So, for your benefits bite, you could send out a postcard to employees' homes with just the key dates for open enrollment and a couple action items that they need to do right away. Then, for your snack, send out a benefits brochure, digital or print with the information employees needs to make decisions. For the meal, this is where you link out to more details, the fine print, or encourage employees to go on your intranet for more information that isn't necessarily needed to make decisions but there if they want it.

Alyssa Zeff:
That's such a great point. We have worked with a lot of organizations who feel like, "Oh, we have to share all of this information with employees." And what we have come to learn is that what the legal requirement is, is that you have to make the information available, but you don't have to mail it every time or make it part of every piece of communication. It's also interesting that you brought up mail and home. Print pieces are a huge part of benefits communications, especially for employees who don't have regular access to a computer, but we also know that spouses are a huge part of the decision-making process when it comes to benefits. So, home mailers are always a great component of a benefits communication campaign.

Courtney Swartzel:
Definitely.

Alyssa Zeff:
I know you personally, Courtney, have a lot of experience creating benefits communication. I thought we could spend a minute or two, let's just go back and forth, rapid-fire. What are some best practices for benefit communication? You go first.

Courtney Swartzel:
Organize information, so it's easy to navigate.

Alyssa Zeff:
Excellent. I'm going to say similarly, condense information so users can skim through it quickly

Courtney Swartzel:
Conversational language avoid jargon.

Alyssa Zeff:
Oh my God. Yes. I think visuals, callouts, bullets, subheads, icons, things to help draw people's attention to different sections.

Courtney Swartzel:
Yes, yes, yes. I feel so strongly about all of these. This reminds me, a quick little story. My husband's company mailed their benefits information to our house, and of course, the communicator me picked it up and looked through it. It was a bunch of legalese, a dense black and white packet of just Times New Roman font.

Alyssa Zeff:
No, no. Not Times New Roman.

Courtney Swartzel:
I know. It's the worst. And comic sans. But, no table of contents, no subheads, callouts, forget pictures. So, I just put it down. See, this is the problem. If I don't work at your company, I should be able to understand the benefits and information you provided easily.

Alyssa Zeff:
That's such a great example of what we just talked about. Especially as it relates to visuals. You don't know the content, you don't know the company. You see this information, and you want to know, "Okay, what are the key dates, or what are the key factors, or where is the medical stuff?" And there should be great visuals just drawing your eye to that stuff and making it really easy to understand. So, let's build on that, on the importance of visuals for a second. Can you share some examples of how visuals really help bring benefits material to life?

Courtney Swartzel:
Absolutely. You want the communication to be enticing. You want your employees to pick it up and actually read it. A fun visual tool you could use are scenarios. You could create fictional scenarios for certain health plans that you're featuring, have simple snapshots, and do a fictional employee's lifestyle, and why they chose that plan. Employees can then identify with someone who has similar needs as them like, "Do I have kids? Am I married? Do I go to the doctor often?" This also makes it relevant, seeing themselves in the benefits.

Alyssa Zeff:
That's such a great point. I definitely agree. Scenarios, and sometimes we've seen a lot of our clients create personas, and also create the opportunity for people to interact with that content and say, "Okay, I have no kids. I am married. I'm married, and I have three kids, I'm this far from retirement." Whatever it is, so they really can start engaging with it and relate to that content in a big way. Another useful way to make benefits information visual could be tables, like a really at-a-glance calendar, for example, of key dates. Make it very visual. Something like a roadmap or something fun so that people know, "Okay, here's what I need to do, when." Or a simple checklist, so people know what they have to act on. I think very often, we see content dumped in as opposed to making it digestible. So, what do you think is new in benefits? What are some trends that you're seeing that is happening right now as it relates to benefits communication?

Courtney Swartzel:
A lot of companies are using technology to enhance the employee experience with benefits. There are online platforms that make it easy for employees to make decisions based on their own data. So, the platforms use artificial intelligence to analyze the employee's lifestyle and demographics, like we were saying, age, if they have kids, all that stuff. And based on these responses, the benefits bot will suggest a plan and coverage about, believe it or not. Some even provide recommendations for voluntary benefits and other programs.

Alyssa Zeff:
That's awesome. Building on the technology and the artificial intelligence, I think what we're seeing relates that is a lot of personalization. So, similarly to the experiences that we have as consumers with other brands and other things, who know a lot about us and feed us the information that we need, if I log on to benefits, they already know everything about me. So, they're only going to show me what's new; something that only I need to take action on, something that is different even throughout the year, not just again during open enrollment, but things I may be aware and can even push content to targeted people based on their lifestyle, their decisions, what actions they've already taken and what they haven't. I think technology can really take benefits communication to the next level. So, if you had to pick one thing that everyone should focus on to get communicating benefits correct, what is the one thing?

Courtney Swartzel:
I'd say, "Less is more." Avoid data dumping. Try your best to condense your information, and please use conversational language too so employees can easily figure out what they need to do. Do this, and fewer employees will be confused or have questions.

Alyssa Zeff:
I totally agree. If I had to pick one thing, it's probably in the same bucket, but it's also just makes it simple. Make it easy. People go for benefits information at the moment that they need to take action, and they are there to focus on, "Okay, give me the information I need to make a smart decision," because it's really complicated stuff. And a lot of times, people get it wrong and think, oh, they need more information to make a decision. It's not. They need less information. They just need the right information.

Courtney Swartzel:
I couldn't agree more.

Alyssa Zeff:
So, thank you, Courtney, for joining me virtually for Season two of Employee Buzz.

Courtney Swartzel:
This was fun.

Alyssa Zeff:
Thanks again for being here, Courtney, this was a lot of fun.

Courtney Swartzel:
Thank you. I had a blast.