With the dust of open enrollment season finally beginning tosettle, brokers should begin taking stock of 2016. Many will lookback on a mix of outcomes — enrollments that they consideredsuccessful and others they probably wish could be “do-overs.” Mostwill use participation results as the basis for measuring theirsuccess — and rightfully so.

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While that's a great starting point, it can be just as importantto gauge what did and did not work, particularly from asystems'capability perspective. Were you able to strike the rightbalance between client needs and the capabilities of the systemsthat were used, or were there unanticipated challenges behind thescenes?

It was common in the past, for example, for health care andvoluntary benefits to be enrolled in separate environments. Basedon survey participants in Eastbridge's 2016 Market Vision™The Employer Viewpoint report, today's employers prefercore and voluntary programs to be enrolled on the sameplatform.

They also want more integration between their chosen systems andthose of the carriers with which they work and more personalizedenrollment communications for employees.

Another recently released Eastbridge report, Enrollment andBenefit Administration Platform Providers: A MarketplaceReview, found that many platforms are evolving into “one-stopshops,” bringing the services of enrollment and benefitadministration together in one place.

Reporting, employee self-service and carrier data transfer, aswell as the ability to enroll core and voluntary coverages, are allbecoming more common capabilities in the market. Most platformswill even accommodate custom communication and educational webmaterials to aid in the personalization that employers areseeking.

The essence of enrollment is not about technology or process;these are just the means to an end. Rather, the key is motivatingan employee to buy. Creating better alignment between the systemsthat support enrollment and the needs of the client is likely toimprove your chances of getting employers to allow more and betteraccess to employees.

So as you evaluate your 2016 enrollment results, remember tolook beyond just participation, and measure satisfaction in allareas.