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Tips for a Successful Open Enrollment




Full Interview transcript

Carl: Hello business owners this is Carl Kleimann with another Business Survival Tip from Odyssey OneSource. If your firm offers employee benefits, then you likely conduct Open Enrollment sometime during the fourth quarter. This is the one time each year when employees determine which benefits they will select for themselves and their families during the year ahead. In most cases, this is the only time that employees are allowed to make changes to their benefit elections. So poor decisions at enrollment time are likely to have lasting consequences.

Typically, Open Enrollment consists of four stages: notification, information, the decision process, and enrollment. While many employers handle all four stages internally, your benefits broker may be able to assist you if necessary.

Let's discuss each of these four stages:

  1. The Notification stage consists of sending an email, flyer, or voicemail alerting employees that Open Enrollment is approaching.
  2. The Information stage is when you provide employees with a packet containing printed Open Enrollment materials, usually by mail, at the start of the Open Enrollment period.
  3. During the Decision Process, employees typically rely on three sources of information. Those include their own research, company hosted events, and informal discussions within their personal networks. Good decisions are based on good information so consider hosting meetings where employees can ask questions and get advice about their benefit elections.
  4. And finally, Enrollment, which is the final step in the process. This is where employees actually document their benefit elections on official enrollment forms. Remember, these forms are then forwarded to the benefit providers in time for a January 1 effective date.

In most cases, employees will be forced to live with their benefit elections for an entire year so make every effort to help them make wise choices.

I am Carl Kleimann and this has been another Business Survival Tip by Odyssey OneSource, ranked as the number one Professional Employer Organization three years running by the Black Book of Outsourcing.

For more information on this and other issues affecting employers, please visit odysseyonesource.com.


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