VideoBenefits statements are often printed booklets, although they are increasingly moving to the Web, where they can be continually updated and become logical extensions of Web-based HR services such as retirement- and health-plan enrollment. The Web is becoming a more meaningful communications medium, pushing out customized information, interactive worksheets, and a host of corporate messages on everything from new and innovative benefits (such as flex-time plans) to answers to common questions about traditional benefits.
But even a great Website won't be enough to meet all the benefits needs of all employees. "There's more and more demand out there for individualized education," says Jeff Levy, who manages the retirement practice at HR consulting firm Cammack LaRhette. "People want answers to their specific questions, which could range from 'Should I change my asset allocation?' to 'What is a mutual fund?'"
To usefully address such questions, companies have learned to dole out data in small bursts — using E-mail blasts and podcasts, monthly intranet postings, or even animated characters online. (Ceridian, an HR services company, actually created online commercials featuring a superhero named Flexman, who saves people from financial binds by explaining the virtues of flexible-spending accounts.) They hold confabs for specific demographic groups, such as hour-long lunch-and-learn sessions about retirement planning for those who are within a decade of the blessed event. Companies can also target mailings to different groups — reminding the fixed-income addicts to diversify, or nudging nonsavers to enroll. "If you narrow the focus, it's a better way to reach people," advises Segal's Kress. "Something gets your attention if it is, in fact, about you."
New Default Zones
The less intimidating benefits seem, the more likely it is that employees will fully participate in them — and involvement, in turn, raises retention. A recent Cammack LaRhette survey concluded that annual turnover among employees who didn't join company-sponsored retirement plans, for example, was 20 percent, while only 9 percent of participating employees exited. "Their participation is a sign that they are engaged with the organization," says Levy. "And those who feel that connection are more likely to stay."
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 made it easier for employees to partake in their employers' retirement plan by doing…nothing. Employers can automatically enroll new hires and even invest their funds on their behalf. Employees can opt out, but the same inertia that often caused them to fail to join now works in reverse, tending to keep them in. Some programs will even step up an employee's deferral automatically — starting at 3 percent a year, say, and then increasing the rate by 1 percent a year for the next three years. That same law also helps companies confront what has long been a huge stumbling block in 401(k) help: the fine line between education (allowed) and advice (prohibited).
Now companies have the green light to give 401(k) participants access to investment advisers, and that one-on-one experience may become the norm for other aspects of benefits counseling as well. "There's no substitute for the human connection," as Kress puts it. Maryella Gockel, flexibility strategy leader at Ernst & Young, says she is intrigued by the possibility of providing individual "college coaches" to guide employees' kids. "We're always interested in what might be the next hot thing," says Gockel. Such as? A decade ago, 23 percent of companies provided workers access to information about services that could help them deal with the needs of elderly family members; that figure has grown to 39 percent, according to the 2008 National Study of Employers from the Families and Work Institute.
Embedding Benefits
That group also uncovered what is becoming a major trend in benefits: flexible working arrangements. An earlier study by the Families and Work Institute found that 73 percent of workers with "high access to flexibility" are committed to staying at their jobs; the number shrinks to 54 percent when employees have little freedom to flex. "The more autonomy people have, the more satisfied they are with their careers," says Christian M. Ellis, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting.
A decade ago, when the Institute asked about flexibility, it distinguished between 8 different kinds. In this year's National Study of Employers, there are 20 iterations, ranging from flex-careers to flex-place to sabbaticals. This year's study found that 79 percent of companies allow some employees to periodically change their starting and quitting times — as compared with 68 percent 10 years back. (How else have benefits changed in the past decade? See "For Benefits, a Decisive Decade" at the end of this article.) "In the past," says Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, "any kind of flexibility was seen as a favor. Not anymore." There are several reasons for this, ranging from a desire to reduce real-estate costs to the availability of supporting technologies. But a big impetus may come from the expectations and experiences of younger workers. "The younger generation grew up as 'digital natives,' IM-ing each other in math class," Galinsky says. It can be hard to convince them that being tethered to a desk is their only option.
Reader Comments» Post a comment