Open Enrollment is quickly approaching!

By: Lane Donatelli, Sales Director, ETA Insurance Group
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As open enrollment for group health insurance is fast approaching, there are a few ideas that employers should be considering. This year, as business is getting back to what may feel like the pre-pandemic normal, there have been major shifts that keep the hiring and retention of key employees feeling anything but normal. Benefits play a huge role in how an employee values their job and their employer. Flexible hours and working from home are becoming more the norm than a benefit in many industries, so employers need to look beyond these and consider benefits that will have a financial and even an emotional value to the employee or candidate.

This is where worksite benefits play a huge role. By offering worksite or “supplemental” benefits such as Life, Accident, Disability, Critical Illness, and GAP Insurance, coupled with affordable Health Insurance, employers can offer very robust benefit packages for employees and their families while keeping within their budgets. Small employers (2-to-49 employees) have plenty of options to provide, or connect their employees with, robust and meaningful benefits as well so they shouldn’t believe the hype that the standard small group plans are the only option, and they are all too expensive. The Insurance Industry has gotten very creative and will continue to develop ways to meet the needs of the consumer, both in the group and individual settings.

Now that you have some ideas of what to offer, it’s time to survey your employees and get their feedback on what your benefit package should consist of to give you the biggest bang for your buck. Whether its insurance products, hybrid work schedules, special pay plans, time off, or retirement investment plans, let your employees tell you what is most important to them. Armed with that information, let your broker build some models for you that will please many of your employees, while protecting your bottom line. I promise… There is a perfect solution out there. It just needs to be constructed.
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​Finally, we always recommend continuous training for your employees on the benefits they have available. It is very disheartening to see an employer offering a fantastic benefit package only to learn that the employees were never properly advised on all the benefits and therefore are not taking advantage of all the bells and whistles afforded by their plan. Educating your employees and then providing a “total compensation” report at the end of the year showing the total amount of compensation they received (or the total amount of money you spent on them) will go a long way in making your employees feel appreciated and “fairly” compensated.