Now that benefits open enrollment is coming up, benefits communications are top-of-mind for lots of companies. But communicating about benefits shouldn’t be a once a year deal.

Too often, companies treat benefits like a dirty little secret. It’s an icky topic that no one dares talk about because let’s face it. Benefits can be complicated and scary – like death and taxes, right? Besides, the benefits website will take care of ALL of the company’s benefits communications needs. Yeah, right. So, it’s all too easy to engorge employees with a giant platter of benefits messages at once when open enrollment rolls around.

Maybe your company doesn’t have the resources to dedicate to benefits communications, but there are a few things you can do with a little planning to keep benefits in the company foreground and weave key messages into companywide communications channels.

Think big. Create overall key messages for each major benefit. Use these as one-page summary or fact sheets to post on your intranet or benefits site. Distribute them to managers to use as talking points for staff meetings or just to have on hand when employees ask them questions. Managers really should be able to answer the basics since their team members often look to them to answer benefits questions. Q&A sheets for each benefit are great tools as well.

Think quickly. Draft brief articles for the company newsletter or intranet. Just some quick facts or tips to keep benefits top-of-mind for employees and to help them make the most of their benefits.

Think little. What about all the little benefits that are oft-forgotten like insurance discounts, credit union memberships, pet insurance?

Think circular. Think about the life cycle of an employee at your company. What are all of the “touch points” you can tap into and weave in benefits messages? On an individual level, there’s recruiting, orientation, merit reviews, promotions, retirement. On a company level, there’s quarterly companywide updates like town halls or conference calls.

All of these things can help make benefits more digestible for employees. Breaking off the information and serving them up in bite-size chunks for employees make benefits easier to understand. Sure, employees will still want their benefits info when they want it (like when a question pops up at home), so you definitely need to make sure it’s easily accessible and available to spouses who often share in the decision-making.

For more tips on benefits communications see this earlier blog post.

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