Group Benefits for a Small Business: What Is Your Program Communicating to Your Employees?

Prospective employees often consider benefits when choosing between working at one company over another. But it won’t matter how great the benefits package is if potential or current employees don’t understand them. Communicating your benefits packages clearly to your employees, making benefits information accessible, leveraging technology, and discussing less-used benefits with your team can all help your employees understand their available benefits.

Depending on the size of your organization, this could be easier said than done. It may be beneficial to talk to a benefits advisor to help strategize a clear communication plan for sharing information on your group benefit plan with your team. An advisor can also help you develop a benefits plan if you don’t already have one.

What Are Group Benefits?

Group benefits are an employee benefit package offered by employers to their employees. Benefits packages often include health, dental, vision, life insurance, disability coverage, retirement benefits, and more. 

The cost of the group benefits package is often shared between the employer and the employees.

How Do Group Benefits Work?

Group benefits work by pooling the risk and resources of all employees enrolled in the program. The cost of coverage is reduced for everyone by spreading the risk among many participants. In addition, employers can often negotiate lower rates with insurance companies due to the volume of employees enrolled in the program. The benefits offered vary depending on the employer and the plan chosen.

Communicating Your Group Benefits Program to Your Employees

Group benefits can be a great incentive for attracting and keeping the top talent for your small business in whatever industry you’re in. But the incentive can lose some of its shine if your team doesn’t understand or know how to access their benefits.

Make Information Accessible

If your team doesn’t know what’s in their benefits package, they won’t use it. This is particularly true for perks beyond the usual, like employee assistance programs (EAPs) or health spending accounts.

One of the best ways to ensure access to benefits information is to hand out an employee booklet. This can be a printed booklet or a PDF packed with all the need-to-know details on the group benefits plan. 

Leverage Technology

Technology can make our lives much more convenient if we let it. So, why not bring it into the realm of employee benefits? With a digital platform, you can increase benefits usage among the team. Digital access and apps can make claim submissions quicker, coverage lookup easier, and usage tracking more convenient. Removing inconvenient paperwork can help your employees maximize their benefits. 

Notify Your Team of Less-Used Benefits

Some aspects of group plans can get overlooked, like an EAP. It’s these less conventional services that your employees might not be fully aware of or focused on using. 

Drafting a few internal communications highlighting specific less-used parts of your plan can bring awareness to employees and encourage them to take advantage. This could be as simple as an email or a shout-out in a meeting.

Ask for Feedback

It may seem like a simple consideration, but asking for feedback is a great way to improve communication between your management team and the rest of your employees. Ask individuals or conduct a company-wide survey to collect feedback on what’s working about the benefits plan and what’s not. 

What Is a Health Spending Account?

Health Spending Accounts (HSA) are group benefits that reimburse various health-related expenses on top of your regular benefit plans. Your HSA is available for unpaid balances or costs not covered under your other benefit plans, including:

• Vision care expenses like glasses, contact lenses, and laser eye surgery
• Certain prescription drugs like fertility medication
• Paramedical practitioners like psychologists and acupuncturists
• Adult orthodontics like dental braces

Discuss Group Benefits for Your Small Business

Contact our team at Qopia Financial to help define your small business’s group benefits plan. One of our experienced professionals can sit down with you and determine your needs, from developing a group benefits plan to creating a strategy for effectively communicating the existing plan with your team.