I hate open enrollment. I never feel like sorting through healthcare jargon to plan the next year of what-if scenarios. I’ve got a million other things to do, so I wait until the end, when I’m forced into picking an option I only roughly understand. Nearly one-third of American workers admit they still don’t understand employee benefits, while every year HRs scramble to avoid last-minute selections.

Selecting a cost-saving benefits plan that achieves a competitive edge for talent while influencing great engagement and retention is a tall order. So, it’s not only important to select the right package, but to ensure that your workforce understands what they are buying to make your choice succeed.

“That is the genesis of why some of these programs exist,” he said. “It was an attempt to try to create workplaces where more or all people can thrive.” When we are talking about creating workplaces where all people can thrive, we are no longer talking about disadvantaged or advantaged races, but inclusivity for all.

Because of the complexity and the confusion of the healthcare system, clear education and resources are needed to supplement provider’s marketing brochures. Email nurture campaigns are effective at automating the process for you while giving your employees the support they need through open enrollment. Covering the basics allows anyone too afraid to ask or too busy to reach out, an opportunity to make an educated selection.

Providing basic healthcare education also allows HR to walk the line between education and giving advice. The primary goal is to provide consistent communication to help educate, inform, and remind your workforce to make their selections early.

Healthcare materials contain complex terms and acronyms with long, scientific explanations, to the point we give up and stop reading. Our attention spans have become much shorter and reader habits are evolving.

We are inundated with words, causing information overload. The worst part is that because of this information epidemic, we are missing critical information. The healthcare landscape is the perfect example of this problem.

The creators of Politico and Axios created Smart Brevity, which teaches organizations how to say more with less. They estimate we read for 26 seconds, on average. If we hit a “big block of text” we stop paying attention, but if the text is combined with white space, bolding, and bullets, we can shorten the reading time.

This is a critical skill to learn for open enrollment and beyond. HR needs are typically the last priority on an employee’s list, so it’s even more imperative for HRs to know how to be effective in their communication.

When we read something, we ask ourselves two things:

• What is this about?
• Is this relevant to me?

Axios says, “if we can’t get to “yes” in 17 milliseconds, we move on.” They combat this issue by ensuring every communication starts with what’s new and why it matters. The outcome is trust. For HRs, this is a valuable asset to influence your workforce, stakeholders, and your seat at the table. Here are Smart Brevity Guidance tips:

1. Before writing, list the points you must make.
2. Whittle down your list of important points to 1 or 2, if possible.
3. Put the list in bullets.
4. Think about your own reading habits. We don’t study every word from an email or a report. We take away 1-2 ideas. Make sure you pick them, not your reader.
5. Do a gut-check: is this point essential?
6. Delete, delete, delete. What can you remove before sending?
7. Every word or sentence you delete saves the other person time.
8. Less is more and a gift.

The authors behind Smart Brevity say, “do these things and people will stop rolling their eyes—or ignoring you–when you present them with a new idea or message. They will start to welcome your ideas and hear them loudly and clearly.”

The marketing principle of 7 emphasizes that a potential customer needs exposure to your message at least 7 times before taking action. When we apply this to open enrollment, we need to send consistent communication to lead them along that purchasing path, and the sooner the better.

Open enrollment is all about Smart Brevity and how to communicate simplistically so your employees take full advantage of the benefits you’re offering as the reasons to work for you. What’s the point in paying for an expensive plan if your workforce doesn’t use it or understand the offerings?

HR can play an important role for employees in this process by providing basic healthcare education that strips away the marketing. Reaching out to offer more support can also go a long way in establishing a trusted relationship between employer and employee.

Simple education includes topics like these:

1. The Basics: Healthcare acronyms
2. Flexibility: HMOs vs PPOs
3. What is In Network or Out of Network?
4. Co-Insurance vs. Co-pay
5. Deductibles
6. How to Do Your Due Diligence
7. Next Steps

If your employees know this information already, all the better. This campaign simply serves as a reminder, or touchpoints, to help them along their journey to buy healthcare. Because this is an annual event, you can then continue to add FAQs specific to your voluntary perks, provide scenarios, etc. to continue to build on it year after year.

Axios says, “if we can’t get to “yes” in 17 milliseconds, we move on.” They combat this issue by ensuring every communication starts with what’s new and why it matters. The outcome is trust. For HRs, this is a valuable asset to influence your workforce, stakeholders, and your seat at the table.

The cadence of when and who you send it to is up to you. The percentage of employees who, on average, delay their selection should influence your frequency in reaching out to remind them. You can also start the campaign a couple of weeks before the deadline by sending it to only those who have not signed up as a friendly prompt.

SHRM says, the more employees understand their benefits, the more they’ll use them and find them valuable. Use and evaluate a multifaceted communication strategy that explains how voluntary benefits can meet employee needs during every life stage.

Another effective way to keep open enrollment top of mind is to display a banner on your HRIS homepage with a countdown to convey the urgency of taking action. As humans, we have a tendency to want to remove the annoying warning from our view.

Changing providers causes great stress and upheaval to your employee’s lives and that of their families. Finding new doctors, going into a new network, managing how you’ll get meds and continue your care can be stressful and complicated. Add this on top of your workload and employees have plenty of reasons they wait until the last minute.

Yet, benefits are a significant part of the employer-employee relationship, and reach outside the bounds of the workplace to ensure your employees’ health needs are taken care of. Because of this, it is important they know what care went into making these decisions.

Be transparent about the reasons for changing providers and options and/or pathways from your current plans. Comparisons are always the most difficult if you are changing providers. An experienced broker details these options adequately for employees, but won’t speak to the employer’s decision behind the changes.

Establishing trust with your workforce is the most important foundation of a healthy work environment. Transparent communication can be effective in fostering a trusted relationship with employees. The most effective reasoning can come from analytics. If a perk isn’t being taken advantage of, then it’s easy to explain why it is no longer being offered.

There are confidential reasons you may not be able to share with the employee behind the changes, but identify and share what you’re able to. With communication, like Smart Brevity says, less is more. Keeping it simple is a rule that works in your favor.

Open enrollment can be incredibly stressful for you and your employees. HR can have influence over this process by sending educational reminders, or short forms of communication, to engage with the employee around the open enrollment process. Automate this process through an email nurture campaign to enhance year after year and turn open enrollment into an opportunity to foster trust between employer and employee.