Explain benefit changes, payroll costs and required actions. Build a clear enrollment process and check that employee elections reach payroll correctly.
September 2, 2024 · Financial Forte Staff
Historical article: prepared retrospectively using information available as of September 2, 2024.
Open enrollment can become a rush of documents, reminder emails and last-minute questions. Employees may receive plenty of information without understanding what changed, what they need to do or whom to contact. The employer then spends the closing days resolving confusion that could have been identified earlier.
Build the communication plan around decisions and actions. Explain the choices, their practical consequences, the employer's actual deadlines and the support available. A successful process gives employees a reasonable way to make and confirm elections while helping HR identify errors before coverage and payroll changes take effect.
Define the action required for each benefit
Some benefits may renew without an active election, while others require a new choice. Confirm the rules for each offering before sending a general message that employees can keep everything the same. A single instruction can be misleading when different benefits operate differently.
Explain what happens if an employee takes no action. That answer should come from the plan and enrollment process, not a familiar practice from last year. If an existing option is changing or disappearing, make the effect clear enough that employees do not mistake silence for an unchanged election.
Provide a short comparison of material changes alongside the formal documents. The summary should help employees find the relevant details without replacing required notices or plan terms. For ERISA-covered benefits, disclosure and administrative responsibilities remain part of the employer's operating framework.[1]
Avoid implying that every financial benefit can be changed only during open enrollment. A retirement-plan deferral election may have a different change process from a health-plan election. Tell employees where the relevant rules are found so the enrollment campaign does not create a restriction the plan does not have.
Translate the cost into the employee's pay cycle
In this hypothetical example, an employer increases the employee’s required contribution for employee-only health coverage from $150 to $180 per month. The increase is $30 monthly, or $360 over twelve months. An employee paid twice a month would see a $15 increase in the premium deduction per paycheck if the amount is spread evenly over 24 paychecks. The change in take-home pay can differ when deductions are pre-tax; payroll should explain the applicable treatment.
That is different from a biweekly payroll with 26 paychecks. The employer should use its actual deduction schedule and explain whether some checks do not carry benefit deductions. Calling both arrangements “twice monthly” can create an avoidable mismatch between the announcement and the paycheck.
Now suppose the plan also changes a deductible. The communication should show that change separately from the payroll deduction. A lower premium does not automatically mean lower total healthcare spending, and a higher premium does not by itself establish better coverage. Employees need the plan's actual cost-sharing and provider information to compare options.
The figures in this example are invented. The point is to explain the effect in the units employees use while preserving access to the complete plan information. A decision guide that requires every employee to translate monthly premiums into an unfamiliar payroll pattern adds work without improving the choice.
Offer support that respects different circumstances
Some employees will read a detailed guide; others may need a short presentation, accessible materials or a conversation outside their normal shift. Use the channels and languages appropriate to the workforce. Do not assume an email reached someone simply because it was sent to an address on file.
Provide a reliable route for questions and distinguish general information from individual advice. HR can explain the process and direct employees to plan resources. It should not promise that a particular plan will cover a person's treatment without confirmation from the appropriate source.
Protect privacy when questions involve health information. Give employees a suitable way to contact the plan or administrator rather than asking them to share diagnoses in a group meeting or with an unrelated manager. Plan administration and employment decisions have different purposes and restrictions.[2]
For the hypothetical employer, a short question session may reveal that employees understand the premium increase but are unclear about where to check provider participation. A direct link and named support contact address that issue more effectively than repeating the same premium chart in another email.
Verify completion and learn from the exceptions
An active enrollment process can require employees to review and submit elections. That may make choices more visible, but it also creates work for employees and HR and requires a plan for people who miss the deadline. Passive renewal may reduce effort but can allow outdated choices to continue. Select the process based on the actual plan requirements and workforce, then explain it accurately.
Ask employees to retain confirmation of their elections. Establish a secure way to report a discrepancy, and have HR reconcile completed elections with the administrator and payroll records. A completed online form is not the final measure if the wrong deduction or coverage later appears.
Two useful measures are the number of unresolved elections at the deadline and the number of payroll or coverage discrepancies after implementation. Review the reasons behind them. A low question count is not automatically success if employees did not know where to ask.
For an ERISA-covered plan, provider oversight and accurate administration remain important even when a vendor supplies the enrollment platform.[1] Assign ownership of exceptions, document resolution and confirm the correction with the employee through an appropriate private channel. The trade-off is staff time before and after enrollment, which should be included when choosing the support arrangement.
Start with a one-page action map for each benefit: what changes, what the employee must do, when it must happen and where help is available. Then test it with a few people who were not involved in writing it. Clear communication earns its value when employees can make the intended decisions and the employer can verify that those decisions were implemented correctly.
Related reading
Have more questions about open enrollment communication and benefit administration? Email Dave at dave@financialforte.com to discuss your questions and next steps.
The contact invitation is current; it does not imply this contact path existed on the historical reference date.
Educational information, not personalized investment, tax, legal or benefits advice. Examples use hypothetical assumptions. Verify current rules and your circumstances before acting.
