Whether it is promoting open enrollment, explaining plan changes or educating on how to use benefits, communicating benefits information to employees is a perennial challenge for employers. A fast-growing trend among leading companies is to include social media in their benefits communication strategy to extend their reach. Millennials will make us 1:3 employees by 2020 and 75% of workforce by 2025—social media is part of their daily routine/ how they function and needs to be a key marketing tool for businesses. Furthermore, statistically it’s estimated that 61% of workers use their smartphones at work and are using them for social media purposes.
Benefits information can be overwhelming and complex, making some employees more likely to skim over or ignore it. Using social media, such as posting videos to Facebook or tweeting reminders, makes benefits information more relatable and personable—and employees are more likely to pay attention and understand.
Benefits communication must encompass many topics. Employers need to promote open enrollment, educate employees about plan changes, explain how to use the plan, promote consumerism and more. Social media helps break down this overload of information into easy-to-digest posts and reminders—in a place employees’ are already spending time. Posting updates year-round can provide valuable reminders to employees about using their benefits wisely. Therefore, not using social media is more than likely a missed opportunity. Granted, it’s not for every employer or employee, but the amount of people it can reach is growing. Millennials are digital and fast-paced and a major contributor in today’s growing workforce.
Getting Started
To get started, think about how you want to use social media for this purpose. Facebook and Twitter are good places to start, as they are likely the most popular among your employee population.
Whichever platforms you choose, create separate accounts from your external company accounts. Consider using employee-facing accounts not only for benefits communication, but also for wellness and other internal communications. Remember that social media is the perfect outlet for the K-I-S-S philosophy of communication and education—“Keep It Short and Sweet.”
Social media provides potential solutions to some of employers’ toughest benefits communication challenges. Twitter and Instagram require you to be succinct. In promoting a benefit, a meeting, or a wellness challenge, they need to be creative, short and sweet—funny or odd can help too.
Again, effective communication needs to be more often and happen on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) the ones we have listed in this blog are a great outlet for that. It is better than once a year employee meetings on benefits—it’s an easy avenue to continually remind employees what’s out there.
It’s important to note that an employee that plans to use social media has responsibility:
It needs to be monitored and updated consistently and often if they want engagement and buy in—not a one and done like an EE mtg. Some people think there should be updates daily to keep it visible.
How can this happen:
- Ask employees to like company page on FB, follow on Twitter and Instagram RIGHT DURING A STAFF MEETING. Take time to allow them to log in and do it.
- Get employees involved to promote the social media outlet—this might even include a competition/incentive to get started.
Source: Zywave
