Putting in the effort to make sure your employees understand their new medical benefit options will help you tremendously in the long run. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The workload associated with switching or adding a new health plan is overwhelming; the process, stressful. But sticking with the status quo may not be the right thing for your company or your employees. You could be missing out on opportunities to lower costs and improve employees' health plan experience. If you want to stay competitive, you need to keep an open mind to changing your benefits administration process too.

Here are three strategies that will make the process of implementing a new plan easier on you and your employees.

1. Communicate early and often—meeting employees where they are

There are generally two types of employee preferences during open enrollment (OE): those who want the process to be quick and easy and those who want a lot of detailed information. To meet the varying needs, I recommend putting all the information in one spot – such as a company intranet – where employees and their family members can easily access it. This should be done before communicating to the employees. Keep it simple. Organize information in categories that make sense to the employees: Medical & Dental, Life & Disability Insurance, etc. I also recommend including a summary with bullet points linked to content that highlights the key changes.