Open enrollment periods are an essential part of the year. However, they can also create a fair amount of stress and be disruptive to normal operations, especially if you don't plan for them properly.
Still, with the right strategy in place, you can gradually improve your open enrollment planning, streamlining your HR teams' administration processes and leading to a more positive and productive experience for your employees.
In this article, we'll walk you through some practical strategies you can follow that can help you improve your open enrollment planning and execution.
Conduct a Post-Enrollment Diagnostic to Pinpoint Improvement Areas
After the dust settles from a previous open enrollment period and after you've met your ACA reporting deadlines, it's a good time to take a step back and start to consider what you could have improved during the process.
Gather your HR team together, who may be able to offer unique perspectives on your open enrollment processes and help you identify areas of concern.
As you start to do some post-enrollment diagnostics, gather things such as employee feedback surveys, system performance reports, emails, or any other correspondence with insights related to open enrollment activities. Evaluating your employee feedback is a great place to focus additional attention, as this will allow you to extract useful information directly from them.
Look for any commonalities between different employees' perspectives and try to shortlist areas that could be improved. Consider whether the systems you currently have in place are meeting their needs or if there were any apparent problems when needing to submit their benefits, including login issues, technical errors, or hard-to-understand questions.
Leverage Benefits Admin Technology for Automation and Efficiency
While not all BenAdmin platforms are the same, best-of-breed solutions will allow you to establish various rules that can trigger certain automations. This means less manual work for your HR team and better data accuracy across the board:
- Seamless HRIS integrations that synchronize employee data from HRIS platforms, creating a single source of truth to manage employee onboarding, terminations, job changes, or other personnel data changes from one location.
- Automatically transmits deduction information directly to your payroll provider, eliminating the need to navigate multiple platforms while helping to prevent payroll errors.
- Sends real-time enrollment data directly to benefit carriers as updates are made to the platform. This ensures that all employees are enrolled accurately and on time, without the need for manual roster updates or carrier portal changes.
- Automatically applying benefits eligibility rules based on the employees' employment status or job title.
- Provide custom recommendations based on previous benefits choices or employee demographics.
- Calculate all costs or premium deductions as employees make new benefit selections..
Develop a Carrier Transition Playbook
If it's time to consider changing benefit carriers, it's essential to partner with an employee benefits broker to guide you through the process. They'll work closely with you to connect your business with applicable carriers that can closely meet both your organization's needs and budget.
To help make this transition as easy as possible, benefits brokers will assist you in better understanding the types of carriers available and help you shortlist options that are right for your business.
Your technology partner will help your business clearly articulate any specific requirements, such as data formats, unique carrier needs, secure methods for data transmission, and any critical timelines that must be met. They'll also play an instrumental role in helping you understand fourth quarter cut-off dates so that your HR teams and employees aren't left scrambling at the last minute.
Before you make any actual switch, make sure you take the time to sit down with your employees and explain why you're finding the need to change carriers. After the transitions are complete, you should also make sure you provide them with all the relevant resources they'll need to guide them through their new benefits options moving forward.
Implement Benefits Technology Early for Seamless Open Enrollment
It can be easy to assume you'll have plenty of time to search for new benefits technology later on, after open enrollment periods end. However, getting a head start on this process is critical to ensure you have enough time to get new systems tested and up and running before the next open enrollment period.
Giving your team extra time in the year to source and set up new technology allows them to test the solution in real-life situations. For example, during employee onboarding or when team members get married or have a child, these are perfect opportunities to test the solution's capabilities. You'll be able to see how the system handles everyday processes while also identifying potential errors that need to be addressed before open enrollment.
By taking advantage of quieter periods throughout the year to test your benefits technology implementation, both your HR teams and employees will be more comfortable with how everything works, and your technology partner can work with you to iron out any issues.
Keep Your Open Enrollment Processes Efficient
Keeping your open enrollment processes as efficient as possible is critical for meeting your annual deadlines and helping employees get the most value from the benefits coverage choices they make.
By planning ahead and following the strategies discussed, you'll create a much more structured approach as you head into your next open enrollment period while reducing any unnecessary burden placed on your HR teams.
Author Bio: Frank Mengert
Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, a leading provider of employee benefits solutions. Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.
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