By regularly communicating newor unique elements of their health plans to recruits and employeesalike companies can deliver constant reminders of the most valuablebenefit they provide. (Photo: iStock)

Locked in an all-out competition to recruit and retain the best talent, HR leadersare coming up with all sorts of creative perks and benefits. Fromkegerators to electric-car chargers to pet insurance, companies seem willing to dojust about anything to give talented workers — especially thosemysterious millennials — another reason to come aboard.

But with all the focus on peripheral benefits, a lot oforganizations are forgetting what's quite likely the most importantperk they offer: health insurance. It's the one benefit thatalmost every business offers and every employee uses. For mostbusinesses it's also among their largest costs. But few businessessay anything specific about their health benefits to theirprospective employees — or for that matter, to their actualemployees.

HR leaders who omit these details are missing out on a criticalopportunity. By regularly communicating new or unique elements oftheir health plans to recruits and employees alike companies candeliver constant reminders of the most valuable benefit theyprovide.

Related: 4 reasons employer-sponsored health insurance won'tgo away

There are certainly good reasons why they don't tout theirhealth benefits more. The human-capital team may feel like theirplan isn't that unique, even if it's a good plan with an excellentprovider network. Or maybe they think about it more like anecessary evil than a perk. Indeed, trust in health plans is at anall-time low, so why would you want to promotethem to your team?

Demanding and promoting, a better experience

But I'd argue that's where benefits specialists and HR leadersshould start — with demanding a better customer experience fromtheir health plans, and by considering the customer experience whenthey choose a plan. While they still lag most other industries,some health insurers are beginning to make strides toward morecustomer-friendly services like online account management,streamlined call centers and more personalized communications.

The next step is to identify the most valuable or uniquebenefits provided by your health plan. Many plans today offertelemedicine services, enabling their membersto interact with providers virtually. But employees can't takeadvantage of that if they aren't aware of it. I'd bet most of yourteam would like to know that the next time they have a sinusinfection they can get a prescription for antibiotics that morningafter a quick video conference rather than sitting in theirdoctor's waiting room for an hour or doing nothing for days andletting it get worse.

On a deeper level, benefits and HR professionals need to beaware of their overall member populations and what options existfor managing the group's high-risk employees. The good news is thatpayers are beginning to use population management tools to collectdata — like retention rates, satisfaction scores, risk assessmentsand patient outcomes — that can help in-house professionals, incollaboration with their insurers, deliver custom communications,marketing campaigns and provider solutions to specific memberpopulations.

So if a lot of the folks on your team are likely to developcarpal tunnel syndrome, or a large portion of them live in an areawhere the propensity for diabetes is abnormally high, your healthplan may offer services for those at-risk groups. You should workwith them to help employees take proactive steps to prevent ormitigate the risks. That's mainly a communication challenge.

The right information to the right people at the righttime

Getting the right information to the right people at the righttime can help build a more trusting relationship between payers andtheir customers — and help employees see the benefit they'regetting from their employment. It also drives proven outcomes: forinstance, a recent Change Healthcare survey showed that some healthplans reported an 80 to 90 percent follow-up rate when they used amore targeted approach to outreach on flu shots. By leveraginganalytics to provide effective, targeted communication, employerswere able to get more of their at-risk members vaccinated, keepingemployees from losing work time due to the flu and avoiding theincremental costs that would come with flu-related hospitalvisits.

Perhaps those communications should come from the payer, orperhaps they should come from inside the company. Ultimately,though, benefits specialists should also encourage health plans toengage with their members on plan features and benefits directly,early and often, rather than just once a year during openenrollment.

Payers should want to be active participants in these endeavors.With the steep rise in self-funded plans — many focusing ondelivering better customer experiences — traditional healthinsurers must strive to do the population health management,analytics-based communication and relationship-building that thosecompeting plans offer.

And with the labor market today tighter than at any other timein the last half-century, employers need every advantage they canget — you want your benefits not only to be used correctly but tobe known. Free snacks and office ping pong are great, but theyshouldn't be the only perks your prospective hires are talkingabout. They should also be hyped about telemedicine, a newwearable, dynamic wellness programs and quality care that can savethem — and your organization — money.

If we start treating health benefits as a benefit, maybe thetalent out there will start to see it that way too.

Read more: 

• Employees want more help understanding their healthcare coverage
• Health care plans good, health care system bad,employees say
• Employers shifting health care increases away fromemployees

Mark Nathan is thefounder and CEO of Zipari, Inc. He began his 25+ year career as arobotics engineer at NASA and spent half of his career leading themodernization of customer experience at Guardian, one of thelargest insurance companies in the nation.