Many companies have relied on various forms of digital communication for years now, and the emergence of COVID-19 has only increased the importance of remote accessibility between employees and employers. Your employees should be able to access their benefits just as easily as they can access a workplace group chat or message board, and implementing the proper tools in your company’s benefits plan can increase your workers’ comfort and understanding when using their plan.
While this transition may seem dramatic, chances are that your employees have already grown accustomed to digital communication platforms. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 81 percent of U.S. citizens owned smartphones, and regardless of age, your employees are likely to be comfortable using apps and accessing websites on at least one of their devices. In fact, you’ll likely find that they prefer having more remote ways to use their benefits tools.
Here’s how improved remote communication can increase your employees’ satisfaction with their benefits plan:
Staying in Touch in Real Time
One of the greatest perks of modern technology is how it speeds up communication and response times. Rather than waiting for face-to-face meetings for their questions to be answered or their concerns to be addressed, your employees can have their benefits needs met online, often instantly. Online portals and apps can put expert advice and personalized benefits tools at your workers’ fingertips, allowing them to find what they need no matter where they are, whether they’re at home, at the doctor’s office, or virtually anywhere else.
Accessible for the Whole Family
Your employees may have experienced the frustration of having to relay information from a benefits meeting back to their spouse, relying on their own notes and memories when they themselves don’t have a complete grasp of the content. By making pre-recorded meetings available online, your plan’s digital tools can:
- Ensure that your employees and their families have access to the same expert-delivered information
- Make the meetings available and rewatchable at any time
- Give employees and their families the opportunity to learn about their plan together
Making benefits tools available on digital platforms doesn’t just positively impact employees – it affects everyone on the plan for the better.
Tools for the Future
The number of business owners who are relying on digital benefits tools has increased since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, but the usefulness and practicality of these tools won’t cease once life returns to normal. Many advisers who have broken away from the status quo have been recommending digital tools in benefits plans for quite some time, and it’s only a matter of time until they become standard features of any benefits plan.
You don’t have to stop holding in-person meetings between your employees and advisers. Integrating remote technology into your plan, however, can increase your employees’ ease of access now and beyond the coronavirus outbreak.
Better Benefits From the Comfort of Home
Implementing digital communication tools in your benefits plan may seem like a big change, but your adviser can help facilitate the transition for you and your employees, making this important tool easy to access. By giving your workers easy and quick access to information, including family members in the conversation, and using tools that will be commonplace in the future of the benefits industry, you can use technology to take your business’ benefits plan to the next level.
Contact us today to learn more about how to make the most of digital communication in your benefits plan.
