Benefit Enrollment Education

August 12, 2009
Posted by Jim Lowery, IPMA-CP

I recently held a benefit enrollment session with a couple of newly eligible employees.  Both employees are new to the working world, having recently graduated from college.  Neither employee  has ever worked where they received benefits before, so their knowledge base was very limited on what they even wanted, let alone knowledge as to what questions they should be asking to maximize this new era in their working lives.

I got to thinking how important it is that HR staff look at this as an obvious "educational moment" that could have a lifetime impact on this new employee.  Sometimes we get so involved in our day-to-day operations that we fail to see how important good HR services are to the staff that come through our doors.  We have many challenges in interpreting new changes that take place in employee benefit programs and I am thankful for the thoughtful staff I work with who take these opportunities to help explain the benefit programs and maximize the time we take with new staff.

I wonder if other HR staff have found "educational moments" that they would be interested in sharing as a "best practice" that would give ideas of ways to improve the benefit enrollment process.  I know  some agencies have drastically changed their "onboarding" process, and I am wondering if the benefit enrollment process has changed as part of those new technical capabilities?