For many employees, the benefits presentation is the first time they hear about their health insurance options and other benefits for the upcoming year. No pressure, right? It’s important to give employees the information they need without overwhelming (or boring) them. These tips will help you create an engaging presentation that’s easy to follow—whether you hold your meeting in person or virtually, and whether employees tune in live or watch at a later date.
9. Create concise slides. Your slides should be short and simple, with only one big idea per slide, no more than five bullet points, not a lot of text, and fonts that are easy to read. The more white space, the better, as it will help the audience digest the information. By sending out your slides prior to the presentation, and including notes for the things you plan to discuss, attendees have a chance to look things over in advance – which means your slides can serve as a summary.
10. Keep your presentation organized. Let’s face it: We have short attention spans, and open enrollment isn’t the most exciting topic in the world. One way to keep the audience engaged is to make sure your presentation is organized. Start with an outline slide that lists each section you’ll cover; as with the benefits guide, list the most important stuff first (major changes, followed by health, vision, and dental summaries). Number each section so folks can follow along. Include key takeaways for each section so employees are more likely to remember the most important details.
11. Use consistent terminology. You may live and breathe benefits, but your employees don’t. Provide definitions for any acronyms and key terms. To minimize confusion, use the same terms in your benefits guide, your benefits presentation, and your open enrollment emails. This may require a bit more work up front – especially if your benefits guide hasn’t been updated in a while – but when your employees tell you they understand their benefits, it will be worth it.
12. Use visuals. Graphics are a good way to provide data visualizations – for example, the amount of additional money saved by maxing out an HSA or 401(k) contribution, or a comparison of out-of-pocket expenses for various types of health plans. These visuals are especially helpful for anyone looking at your slides after the fact, either because they missed the live presentation or they want to show the slides to their family members. As with terminology, keep these visual consistent across all types of communication about open enrollment.
13. Make it fun. In addition to data visualizations, pictures, videos, and memes can add some flavor to your presentation and catch employee’s attention. For example, there’s absolutely no reason not to include pictures of kittens or puppies if you’re talking about pet insurance. None.
14. Leave time for questions. Kick off the presentation with a reminder that you’ll be taking questions; encourage the audience to write them down (for in-person meetings) or ask them in the meeting software chat (for virtual meetings) so they don’t forget. On the final slide of the presentation, include your contact information – as well as links to any relevant microsites, intranet pages, or benefits portals/apps – so it’s easy for attendees to follow up if they have questions later.
15: Practice before the real deal. Ask colleagues on the HR team to listen to your presentation make sure you’re not missing any important details – and run it by other employees to make sure the information is clear enough for someone outside of HR to understand. (They can also tell you if your jokes are, in fact, funny.) Practicing the presentation in advance has the added benefit of giving you a sense of timing, which will help ensure that there’s enough time for questions.
Thank you for reading!
Please fill out the form below to unlock the rest of the report.