Remember that feeling in the pit of your stomach as a kid during the last few days of summer, the nagging worry that life was about to get much, much less fun for you? Maybe you don’t have to remember because, as an HR professional, you still get that feeling as the calendar rolls into September.
For HR teams, the changing seasons only mean one thing: Open enrollment is right around the corner, promising many long, stress-filled workdays ahead.
The pressure is on during open enrollment to optimize your organization’s benefits spending and educate employees about their options, all while providing a smooth and pleasant enrollment process — not the easiest thing to do, considering employees hate open enrollment.
Is It Too Late to Improve Open Enrollment?
At this point, even after months of careful planning, you’re never quite sure if you’ve done enough to successfully bring this year’s open enrollment over the finish line. But with only a few weeks to go, what else can you do?
Flimp Communications is here to help put the finishing touches on your open enrollment strategy with six solutions you can implement in less than two weeks. And, unlike other solutions, you don’t have to choose between quality and cost. These options are budget friendly, easy, and proven effective at reaching employees:
1. A One-Stop Benefits Information Hub with Digital Postcards
This isn’t your standard dry and text-heavy open enrollment email. Flimp’s Digital Postcards let you kick off open enrollment season with an attention-getting style and more functionality than an email could ever hope to offer.
Our Digital Postcards are trackable microsites integrating your branding and messaging with attractive imagery, educational videos, and links to valuable resources and additional tools, like decision support.
Employees return to their Digital Postcards throughout open enrollment season to learn about their benefits and access hosted documents and other related materials. This is why Flimp Digital Postcards typically see engagement rates of 72% or more during open enrollment.
Learn more about Flimp Digital Postcards here, and view 15 Digital Postcard examples here.
2. An Open Enrollment Teaser Video to Generate Excitement
In Hollywood, a teaser is a short but impactful video designed to amp up the anticipation for an upcoming movie or series. A Flimp-produced teaser video can do the same for your company’s open enrollment.
In the same way a movie teaser distills a film to its essence, our teaser videos give your employees exactly what they need to know about open enrollment in about a minute, including OE deadlines, number of days to report qualifying life events, and contact information. Each video is customized with your company’s logo and colors and is available in English and Spanish.
(No, you don’t need a Hollywood budget or timeline for a Flimp open enrollment teaser video. These videos cost just $1,000 each and require only two days to produce.)
3. A Video Library Demystifying 80+ Benefits Topics
Speaking of video, video content can do so much more than announce open enrollment. A well-made video can make complex benefits concepts comprehensible, erasing misconceptions and guiding employees toward better choices.
Videos are especially useful for reaching younger employees, who instinctively turn to video when researching products or learning anything new.
Of course, video production also requires time, money, and special skills — but only if you’re starting from scratch. Flimp offers a comprehensive library of over 80 professionally made explainer videos covering common benefit conundrums such as:
- The difference between HDHPs, HMOs, and PPOs
- How prescription drug coverage works
- How to read an EOB
- Primary care vs. urgent care vs. emergency care
- How to stretch your healthcare dollars
These videos are ready for your employees to learn from and enjoy today. Just $300 gets your company an unlimited-use license along with hosting, embedding, and reporting. Customization is also available for an additional fee.
Learn more about Flimp’s benefits video library and view sample videos here.
4. A Decision-Support Tool to Supercharge Engagement
If only a member of your HR team could sit with each employee and guide them, one on one, through the open enrollment process. You know that would get the results you’ve been looking for, including higher HDHP enrollment, better employee engagement, and an overall more satisfying season for everyone involved.
Of course, it’s also impossible.
PLANselect, a healthcare decision-support tool from Flimp, offers the next best thing to one-on-one guidance. In fact, in at least one way, it may be superior.
PLANselect is available 24/7 throughout open enrollment to help employees understand the differences between health plans and choose the plans that offer the best combination of cost and coverage for themselves and their families.
Digital decision-support tools are nothing new, but PLANselect is unique, consistently generating 50% to 70% average employee-completion rates — the highest in the industry. These stratospheric completion rates are possible because PLANselect only requires a few minutes to complete, yet, the advanced algorithms ensure full episodic costs are captured. The results are quick, accurate, and trustworthy.
Learn more about PLANselect here (along with BENEFITchoice, an educational tool for better understanding voluntary benefits), and click here to watch a video demonstrating its easy-to-use, mobile-responsive interface.
There is still time to launch PLANselect for your company’s open enrollment season. Typical set-up time is three to five business days after we receive all the required materials.
5. A Texting Campaign to Reach More Employees
A perennial frustration for HR teams is that, no matter how hard you try to reach them — how many emails you send, meetings you schedule, and flyers you distribute — there are always a few employees who seem entirely unaware open enrollment is even happening.
There is a way to break through: text messaging, the most popular communication method on the planet.
Typical email open rates range from 15% to 20%. Meanwhile, 95% or more of text messages get opened, most within 15 minutes of receipt. Mass text messaging is great for connecting with employees in remote locations. At home, in the field, or at a worksite, nearly everyone carries a mobile device.
Flimp’s employee-texting solution, WorkforceTXT, is easy to use, secure, and versatile, offering SMS, MMS, email, voice (IVR), and two-way messaging capabilities. Get started today, and you could be sending texts within 24 to 48 hours!
(If you’ve never texted employees before, here’s a rundown of texting regulations, etiquette, and best practices.)
6. A Digital Flipbook Takes Your Benefits Guide to the Next Level
The benefits guide is an OE standby. But, nowadays, where most people choose digital media over printed publications, a paper benefits guide can seem a bit stale (and PDFs can be cumbersome to read on mobile screens).
Flimp’s flipbooks offer the best of both worlds: the sleek interactivity and portability of a digital resource with classic print styling. Our flipbooks are not just a great way to jazz up your benefits guide; they’re mobile responsive, can be securely distributed through multiple channels, and include readership reporting.
Best of all, a Flimp digital flipbook is the ultimate last-minute open enrollment option. Flipbooks cost only $300 each. We can complete the conversion quickly — usually in a day or less. View an example here.
Have the Best OE Ever
Open enrollment can be tense and hectic, but with Flimp’s affordable and easy-to-implement tools on your side, it doesn’t have to be nerve wracking. You can accomplish your goals and maintain your sanity.
Schedule a conversation today to discuss how we can help your HR team communicate critical information to more employees, guide better decision-making, boost engagement, and get the most out of your benefits investment.
