Key Takeaways
- Open enrollment requires a lot of time, planning, and administrative work.
- Benefits brokers can tackle these time-consuming tasks with a general roadmap, plan and cost guidance, communication assistance, educational resources, and tech support.
- A successful partnership with a broker can set businesses and employees up for success.
As Q4 approaches, you’re likely focused on budgets, business goals, and planning for the year ahead.
Then open enrollment arrives.
Between evaluating benefits offerings, communicating changes, managing deadlines, and supporting employees, open enrollment can quickly become a major administrative burden.
Fortunately, you don’t have to manage it alone. A benefits broker can guide the process from start to finish, helping you streamline enrollment, support employees, and stay focused on running your business.
Here are five essential tools provided by experienced brokers that will help you with open enrollment tasks.
Tool #1: Open enrollment roadmap
Now is an excellent time to meet with your broker to map out your approach to open enrollment. They can provide a clear timeline of what needs to happen before, during, and after open enrollment so you can stay ahead of deadlines and avoid last-minute surprises.
Having a plan of action helps. Think of it like prepping for a road trip. You wouldn’t just hit the road for hundreds of miles without a plan or without making sure your car can handle that kind of mileage. You’d have it inspected, perform maintenance, and map your route before driving off.
Your benefits plan is the car in this scenario, and your broker is the mechanic. Your broker should review your benefits strategy with you, recommend necessary adjustments, and guide implementation so open enrollment runs as smoothly as possible.
Download LewerBenefits’s free Open Enrollment Roadmap (PDF).
Tool #2: Plan renewal and cost guidance
The cost of benefits continues to rise, making plan renewals more stressful each year. Your broker can analyze plan performance and recommend changes that balance budget considerations with employee needs.
If you’ve been offering the same plan for years, you may benefit from a change. Brokers understand a wide range of plans and funding models. They can identify opportunities to close coverage gaps, improve employee value, or reduce unnecessary costs.
Tool #3: Employee communication assistance
Perhaps one of the more time-consuming aspects of open enrollment is consistent employee communication. They need to know about deadlines, cost increases, and benefits adjustments, and they will have questions before, during, and after open enrollment.
The good news is that your broker can help you with employee communication. They can provide sample enrollment announcements, deadline reminders, FAQs, and other educational resources that keep employees informed throughout the process.
We also recommend providing your managers with talking points. Since they are often the first line of communication with employees, providing them with answers to FAQs can help build trust. And when employees have in-depth questions that require personalized answers, your broker can provide direct support, reducing interruptions and your workload.
So, relax, and feel confident that your employees are receiving expert guidance from a team like LewerBenefits as they navigate open enrollment.
Tool #4: Benefits education and resources
Employees make better decisions when they’re informed. It’s human nature. Don’t make them go into this once-a-year opportunity to change their benefits without proper guidance!
Employee benefits brokers offer resources such as live webinars and recorded presentations, plan comparison charts, and educational handouts to help employees better understand their benefits and associated costs. These resources help employees compare options, understand costs, and enroll in the plans and options best suited for their unique situations.
Tool #5 Technology and compliance support
Gone are the days when you had mountains of benefits paperwork to sift through and send off. Benefits brokers have the tech and tools you need to successfully navigate benefits administration.
For example, LewerBenefits provides access to Employee Navigator, a one-stop platform for managing employee benefits and compliance. It can help with reporting, filing, employee communications, and submitting carrier and IRS forms online, so you can enjoy a clutter-free desk for once… and the peace of mind that comes with knowing your business is compliant with government regulations.
Let’s win the season together
Don’t shoulder all the responsibilities of open enrollment alone!
LewerBenefits would love to help you and your team move through it with less stress and more confidence. Contact us today and let’s discuss how we can team up to tackle benefits administration tasks together.
