The Importance of Employee Feedback
Personal Business
Surveys Are Key to Your Employees’ Benefits Mindset
Benefits are taking center stage for employees, employers and insurance companies. That’s because benefits have become personal. They touch every part of our lives, from our family’s health to our relationship with our doctors, to dependent care, financial well-being, charitable causes, time off and so much more.
As Open Enrollment planning season approaches, we’ll partner with you to take a fresh look at the benefits you offer. Together, we’ll review the latest survey data and customize a flexible benefits strategy that meets your needs and budget as an employer, gives you an edge in your industry and market, and aligns the needs of our workforce.
The Benefits Mindset is Changing
For the first time in history, we have four distinct generations in the workforce: baby boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z. It’s likely you’ve already noticed that millennials, who will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2020, have different expectations than their predecessors.
For one thing, health care is constantly in the news, making people keenly aware of the role that benefits play in their lives. Younger employees especially expect health care costs to rise each year because they’ve experienced annual increases since they first entered the workforce. But even though employees today are smarter about benefits than they were a generation ago, it’s human nature to not want to think about something until you need it. People don’t read the information we send them and are more likely to let their benefits elections roll over every year than to actively enroll. That’s why it’s crucial to make their benefits personal and relevant, and to motivate them to make an informed choice each year.
Plan sponsors and benefit plan administrators are gradually implementing plan design changes in response to participants’ wants and needs. For example, employees want choices so they can feel like they have some control, and most employers offer more than one plan type or coverage level. Employees have come to expect plans that include free preventive care along with a health savings account and employer contributions that offset some of the cost increases.
More than that, employees not only want value, but also holistic benefits that recognize them as individuals and not just as Social Security numbers. In the competition for top talent, benefits often serve as the difference between an average job and an outstanding employment experience. That’s why more and more companies are adding work-life perks to the mix, such as concierge services that simplify home responsibilities by helping to locate qualified child and senior care; legal and financial services; fitness center discounts; shopping discounts; social responsibility opportunities; and more. Many also offer augmented health and wellness benefits, such as wellness coaching, and a health advocate who can provide support for members with complex health conditions or claims issues. These kinds of benefits are something to consider as we determine your offerings for next year.
Our Plan for Success
Our plan for developing a 2018-2019 benefits strategy with you is threefold:
- Survey your benefits eligible employees (Employee Benefits Satisfaction Survey)
- Survey you, our clients (Organizational Fitness Survey)
- Develop a personalized benefits strategy that makes sense for your business
1. New Employee Benefits Satisfaction Survey
The first step is to find out what your employees are thinking when it comes to benefits. If you’re wondering “don’t they already know that?” the answer is yes and no. We have a lot of historical data that tells us about the choices employees make and how they use their benefits, but this year we’re taking a deeper dive.
That makes this your best opportunity to find out what your employees really want. Instead of just asking what employees want, our questions and response choices will yield answers that tell us how and why employees make certain choices and what motivates their actions and decisions. The survey is strictly confidential and the information we gather will be reported in aggregate (not by individual employee). The results will be critical in gaining an understanding of today’s worker and, consequently, in determining the right mix of benefits to offer your employees. Without this information, we’re just making assumptions about what we think is right, and we know from experience that hard data is a much better planning tool than good intentions.
Instead of asking you to send out the survey, we’re going to send it to every one of our benefits-eligible worksite employees. This will give us a large, reliable database that will yield a more accurate picture of the workforce in aggregate, as well as a snapshot of the responses from employees who work for your company. In addition to gaining insights into our employees’ mindset, we’ll use comparative data to see how our offerings stack up against similar organizations using segments such as company size, geography and industry.
ADP TotalSource and our survey partner have deep experience in administering surveys and analyzing data so it’s meaningful and actionable for you. Using benchmarking data, we will also be able to pinpoint significant shifts that keep our employers on the cutting edge of benefits trends.
The confidential survey is composed mainly of closed-end and multiple-choice questions and should take your employees only about 10 minutes to complete.
Click here to view the Employee Benefits Satisfaction Survey questions.
2. Your Chance to Give Us Feedback
Even though we welcome feedback from you year-round, before Open Enrollment each year, we survey our 15,000 employer-partners to be sure we understand and address your issues and continue to provide the level of service you want, need and expect. Your answers to the Organizational Fitness Survey gives us valuable insights about your business concerns, pain points and challenges — information we can use to adjust and align your benefits strategy to today’s health care environment relative to the market, your business and your employees. The survey is just one of the ways we continually gather feedback to ensure our programs remain valuable to you. Rest assured that we take your feedback very seriously, and we use it to help shape our approach as we continue to offer industry-leading solutions and platforms that give you a higher return on your benefits investment.
3. Personalized Guidance Brings It All Together
Between the employee survey and the employer survey, we’ll gain a layered understanding of the most efficient way to help you manage your business and compete successfully with big companies to attract, retain and engage your employees.
Once we analyze the responses from both the Employee Benefits Satisfaction Survey and the Organizational Fitness Survey, we’ll be able to recommend a customized approach to your benefits program. Your Human Resource Business Partner will schedule time to meet with you to discuss the results as they pertain to your business and your employees. We will then work with you to craft the best benefits program for your needs and budget, while taking your employees’ preferences into account.
Because you’ve chosen us as your business partner, you are never alone. Working with us gives you access to the tools and resources to provide your workforce with a valuable benefits package. We are here to make the process easier so you can concentrate on your core business and feel confident knowing you’re providing the benefits that today’s workforce is seeking.
We have a common goal: To provide a positive employment experience for all our worksite employees. We do this together by offering a competitive benefits package and seamless human resources services that give employees the foundation to contribute to the success of your business.
We look forward to partnering with you on this journey.