If open enrollment had a hashtag, it might be #timeconsuming or #overwhelming. But the hashtag it should have is #financialwellnesstime.

Benefits are the building blocks of financial wellness, and open enrollment is the most important opportunity of the year for employees to create a strong financial foundation.

According to MetLife's 15th Annual Employee Benefit Trends Study (EBTS), nearly half of employees are concerned, anxious or fearful about their current financial wellness. As employees look for ways to boost their financial wellness, they're increasingly looking to their employers. In fact, 3 out of 5 employees say they are looking to their employer for help in achieving financial security through benefits, according to EBTS.

To deliver on employees' expectations and help their workers be financially well, employers are offering a wider variety of voluntary benefits. And as the workforce continues to diversify, a voluntary benefits strategy is only going to become more important.

Even more critical is ensuring that employees understand the resources available to them through the workplace, how these offerings are relevant to their everyday lives, and how benefits can help them meet their financial wellness goals.

Yet today, employees' need are unmet when it comes to learning about their benefits. According to research from MetLife:

They can't navigate the benefits information they receive.
They don't have the time or energy to dig in.
They don't know who to turn to with questions.
When they don't understand their benefits, they assume they don't need them.

In fact, EBTS found that 3 in 10 employees chose not to enroll in non-medical benefits due to a lack of promotion from their employer during open enrollment. Employees are simply less likely to enroll in a benefit if they do not know that it is available to them or if they do not understand its value.

One voluntary offering in particular that employees tend not to fully understand are legal plans. The majority of employees don't realize that a legal plan is an income protection resource that can help them save on costly attorney fees across a spectrum of legal needs, from traffic defense to adoption matters, debt and fraud issues to elder care planning.

Legal plans are growing as a workplace benefit, and the number of employers offering legal plans has doubled over the past decade, according to a report from Society of Human Resources Management. Yet, only about a third of employees say they completely understand this benefit, according to MetLife's EBTS.

Employees who have been educated about this benefit say legal plans help them feel more financially secure. According to a Harris Poll conducted on behalf of Hyatt Legal Plans, 82 percent of those enrolled in a legal plan worry less about financial issues.

This means that employers, in partnership with advisers and carriers, have a big opportunity to boost engagement, productivity and loyalty by helping employees understand the value of legal plans and how they can help if a legal issue were to arise.

The following strategies can help you boost the perceived value of this benefit, along with your other voluntary offerings:

1. Streamline enrollment to help employees navigate. Employees are overwhelmed by the information they receive at enrollment time. According to MetLife's EBTS, 2 in 5 employees are confused by the information they receive from their employer about benefits. Help cut out the clutter so employees can easily find succinct information that's relevant to them, and prioritize the content so they get important information up front.

Encourage clients to streamline by putting voluntary benefits on the ballot alongside other core benefits. An employer's support is critical to the success of a voluntary benefit plan. Integrating other voluntary offerings into an existing benefits program and offering them alongside traditional benefits not only demonstrates support for the benefit, but helps to streamline employees' overall benefits experience.

2. Create simplified, digestible information. According to EBTS, nearly half of employees are stressed by the enrollment process and many think it's too complicated. Creating simple content helps employees quickly digest the information and make informed decisions for themselves and their families without the hassle and frustration.

Consider adding a “Did You Know?” section on the benefits website or an article on the company intranet to post quick highlights about voluntary offerings.

In the case of legal plans, for example, one important component to highlight is identity theft protection and resolution. Concerns about identity theft continue to be top of mind for employees, and an identity theft incident can be a distraction from work, as well as a costly endeavor for employees. Identity management and credit monitoring services included in a legal plan can help uncover and minimize fraud in the early stages and provide employees with a dashboard of credit reports to monitor their credit score. If identity theft is uncovered, fraud specialists provided through the legal plan work to restore the member's identity.

3. Personalize information to align with life events. With multiple generations working side by side, reaching each employee in a way that resonates with the same message is unlikely. Meet employees where they are with personalized messages and materials reflecting life events or life stages.

Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce, and more than a million millennials are becoming parents each year. Beyond adding children to medical and other core benefits offerings, welcoming a new child also comes with legal needs. Who will care for a child if a parent cannot? What will happen to a parent's estate in the event of a death? Yet most new parents don't know about legal plans.

4. Provide well-equipped resources for questions. According to EBTS, only 60 percent of employees agree that their company's benefits communications effectively educated them so that they could select options that best meet their needs. When they have questions, they don't know who to turn to. Employers should provide one-on-one consultations with benefits enrollment representatives, employees' preferred resource for benefits questions. Consider leveraging a benefits communications firm to assist.

They can also leverage internal communications channels to answer questions. Does your client's company use an internal social networking site? Consider having a chat or other virtual social opportunity that employees can leverage to ask benefits questions and engage with their peers about benefits that have helped meet their needs.

5. Don't stop communicating when open enrollment is over. For employees to truly understand their benefits and achieve financial wellness, it's important for employers to communicate beyond open enrollment. In fact, MetLife's EBTS found two-thirds of employees want their employer to communicate with them year-round about benefits, not just at annual enrollment.

One way to communicate regularly with employees is to leverage national events or recognition months, such as National Caregivers Month, National Adoption Month or Financial Capability Month, and tie those events in with available benefits.

In the case of legal plans, this benefit covers elder law matters for employees who are caregivers. Highlighting this benefit during National Caregivers Month (which also happens to coincide with the end of traditional open enrollment season in November) is a great way to educate employees about how this benefit can help them with the issues they may face.

Another opportunity to continue the dialogue on benefits outside of open enrollment is through financial education workshops. Only about one-fifth of employers currently offer financial wellness programs. This presents an opportunity to stand out by offering these options and engaging employees in meaningful ways to boost financial wellness.

The workplace is transforming rapidly, and with employee interest in gig or freelance work growing, employers are focused on retention, engagement and loyalty. Benefits are poised to be the linchpin. However, in order to realize the full potential of benefits offerings, brokers and employers need to take steps to ensure employees understand the value of their benefits and how benefits support their personal financial wellness goals.

Genetic testing: The next hot voluntary benefit?

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert

Genetic testing could be the next big workplace voluntary benefit, according to the favorable responses in the Wamberg Genomic Consumer Survey, which shows that many people are keen about their employer providing the benefit for health purposes.

The survey queried 536 U.S. consumers between the ages of 26 and 64 with employer-sponsored health insurance, finding that a majority (65 percent) of respondents would be interested if their employer offered easy and affordable access to genetic testing for health purposes—provided the results were private and only shared between the employee and their doctor.

Moreover, many people are willing to help pay for such testing if it were a workplace benefit. The survey asked respondents, “What is the most you would pay for genetic testing if your employer contributed $1,000 per year to a tax-free account for your medical expenses?” A third (33 percent) say they would pay $100; 19 percent would pay $250; 8 percent would pay $500; and 4 percent would even pay $1,000 or more.

“For employers considering genetic testing as a voluntary benefit, these results show that their employees will likely see value in getting genetic testing—and they are willing to use their health spending account funds,” says Wamberg's chief medical director Dr. Phil Smalley.

Not all want it as a voluntary benefit: 26 percent want genetic testing but only if it is free, and 9 percent would have no interest in an employer offer of access to genetic testing.

The survey also found that three-quarters (75 percent) of the respondents say that genetic testing can help people live longer and have better quality of life. A third (33 percent) have had genetic testing, and of those, 52 percent found the results useful.

For the first time, employers can offer the following tests and reports to help employees and care providers better manage health: whole genome sequence and report (WGx); whole exome sequence and report (WEx); cancer genomic profiling program (CGx); pharmacogenomics (PGx); and stem cell and cord blood banking.

“Genetic testing is a new health plan option from employers that helps to attract and retain great employees,” says Tom Wamberg, the testing firm's chief executive. “Great employers are looking at health plans as part of the overall rewards and benefits program to give them a competitive advantage.”

Instant Insights /

5 strategies to help clients understand the value of voluntary offerings

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