From Info to Impact: How to Build an Employee Benefits Guide That Resonates

2. Present the most urgent stuff first

Any reporter worth her salt knows an article should present the most newsworthy info first, supporting details second, and background information last. This is often known as “The Inverted Pyramid.” 

Structure your employee benefits guide the same way. Put the most urgent, relevant information first, then work your way down—both when it comes to structuring the guide as a whole, and deciding how to organize information on a single page. 

(For example, big benefits like health insurance, dental, and vision should come before short-term disability, which should come before voluntary benefits, and so on.) 

Also, consider including a “What’s Changing This Year” section at the very beginning of your guide. Employees who just want to cut to the chase (aka most of them) will thank you. 

3. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself

In a world where we’re all just trying to remember where we put our phone, it’s hard to remember every detail of a benefits plan—or when we’re supposed to sign up for it. Don’t be shy about including the most important information in your guide multiple times, in multiple spots.

Here are a few things to say and say again: 

• Important open enrollment period dates and deadlines. Mention them at least three times: in your introduction, your conclusion, and your “How to Enroll” page. 
• Any changes to your benefits programs. You can include it on your “What’s New” page up top, but go ahead and include them again on the plan page, and anywhere else the information seems relevant. 
• Benefits engagement tools. Do you use an interactive tool like ALEX? Mention it on your “How to Enroll” page. Then add reminders—and a URL—in call-outs on other pages related to the topics that tool covers.

4. Spread it out

Have you ever tried to save space and money by cramming a novel’s worth of content onto every page of your benefits guide? If so, stop doing that. A slightly longer, but much easier-to-digest finished product is always the better choice. As a general principle, limit yourself to one big idea per page. If that leaves a few pages with, say, half a page’s worth of white space, that’s fine (especially since you aren’t printing these anymore!)

5. Highlight real employee stories

If your benefits guide is chock-full of photos of generic business people living their best generic lives, we’d like to take this opportunity to stage a gentle intervention. Why? 

Your benefits guide is a huge opportunity to showcase how your employee benefits package actually helps real employees at your company. Include pictures of employees from company events (with permission). Share short stories throughout the guide about how your benefits package helped employees during different moments in their lives. 

People are more likely to engage during benefits enrollment when they can connect with the content in a meaningful way. And if they see people they know in your guide, and hear real stories about how to use their benefits? They’ll be a lot more likely to pay attention to that than a stock image. And, make sure you’re including stories that cover all stages of an employee’s lifecycle (think about a first-time worker to pre-retirement), so your multi-generational workforce can find relatable content.

Guess what, we even have a guide to help with this: 10 Tips To Ask For Employee Testimonials That Promote Your Benefits Offerings!

6. Show the math (and the trade-offs)

Focus on cost transparency for each employee. Detail all of the costs an employee might incur when choosing a specific plan or making a healthcare decision.

It’s not just the math around the plan design. Employees need to understand how a plan might affect their cash flow, for example, if they need hospitalization or an unexpected X-ray or MRI. They need to understand which doctors are in-network and what happens if they see someone outside that network. They need to understand how their health savings account can help them save for now and for the future, or if a no-deductible plan is right for them. Help them evaluate each plan’s impact on them personally, taking into account their unique health and financial status, to make informed healthcare decisions.

7. Visualize the savings (simply)

And while you’re thinking about how to break down the numbers, think about how you can simplify your visuals.

Here’s an example of a graph you could use to give employees a concrete idea of how much they could save if they contribute to their HSA. Here, they can clearly see: if you save $5,000 in your HSA, you’ll save almost $1,000 in taxes.

And while we’re here, take a minute to look at the language we’re using in this graph. We’re not using old jargon like “HSA contributions,” or “tax savings.” 

To the average employee, tax savings are still pretty abstract, and might not be compelling enough to get them to save more. Instead, we’re using real, simple, human words that actually answer employees’ burning questions: “How can I put more money back in my own pocket?” “What’s in it for me if I decide to invest in an HSA?”

8. Personalize it

This is probably a common scenario for you: you just finished an hour-long benefits presentation, covering everything employees need to know about your benefits programs this year, complete with beautiful slides and a Q&A section. And inevitably, 20 employees come up to you at the end and say, “Yeah…but which plans should I enroll in?”

It can be incredibly frustrating, but it hits on an important point: employees only care about the benefits decisions that are best for their unique situation. So, make your benefits guide personal. Outline several different scenarios, and which benefits plans might be the best choice.