Kaleana Quibell, vice president, Wellbeing & Partnerships, Sequoia, specializes in connecting plan members with their benefits. Her company offers a range of benefits consulting services to plan sponsors, including wellness programs. Her advice to sponsors and advisors for relieving employee anxiety:

Emphasize simplified communications of the benefits that are included in the plan that can help them. Sequoia emphasizes storytelling to help plan members choose the options that are best for themselves and their families. "We give examples of three types of plan members who are at different points in their journey," she says. "That way, people can relate their benefits to their own journey." Multiple media types address the way different people receive information best, she adds.
Emphasize that support for understanding and utilizing benefits is available year-round."Most people think they can only learn about their benefits during open enrollment. That is the time when they choose their benefits – yes. But, try to reassure them that they can still get guidance during the entire year, whether it be to find an in-network provider, to get help with personal finances, to access mental health services–just knowing the support is there does alleviate that stress. Ongoing reminders of what's included in your plan are so important," she says. "People need to be reminded the other 11 months of the year that they have a strong plan supporting them." Sequoia creates a "wellbeing benefits support calendar" with a monthly theme and reminders related to the theme. The reminders may be snail-mailed, emailed, pop up on an app, or sent via text – whatever works best for the specific plan member.
Make sure employees can locate the benefit they are seeking, regardless of how the benefits are "stored" for the employee. Sequoia stores them by name and intention online or in the app. If a plan member does not recall the vendor's product name, they can look it up by intention: Find a doctor, schedule a check-up, financial assistance, etc.

Related: Buy groceries or get medical care? Educating employees on benefits will help them do both

"Benefits education is a year-round, constant task," she says. "Experiment with different avenues of communication. We encourage companies to start with training their managers on the solutions included in the plan. We are seeing a shift in people going to managers first and human resources afterwards, largely due to the impact of remote working. Your front line managers can support employees at a high level, especially on mental health and financial management matters."

Instant Insights /

High anxiety: 2/3 of employees are worse off financially than a year ago

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