All businesses with over 50 full-time employees are required to offer health insurance or be penalized $3,860 per uninsured employee. Our Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant MEC benefits calculator breaks down the cost of remaining incompliant vs. annual costs with MEC here. Offering Minimum Essential Coverage benefits saves over $180,000,000 annually.
As an employer, you know the benefits of offering medical coverage for your employees.
Other benefits of offering health insurance to employees aside from monetary savings include overall healthier and happier employees. It’s a cost-effective way to retain talent and avoid high turnover.
In the end, healthier and happier employees are also more productive at work. Employees are more productive when supported through health insurance because they gain access to preventative care resources that combat preventative illness such as:
- Annual physicals
- Lab work
- Screenings
- Immunizations
Providing affordable healthcare reduces stressors associated with healthcare expenses such as medical bills. When employees and their families are healthy, they, in turn, miss fewer work days due to underlying health conditions that were left untreated. This results in overall increased productivity, and they are more likely to be positive, engaged, and determined in the workplace.
With all of these benefits, how can you as an employer encourage employees to sign up for health benefits?
Encouraging employees to sign up for health benefits
Encouraging your existing employees to sign up for health benefits can be simple and efficient. Running your business is your area of expertise, and promoting health insurance shouldn’t take time away from your day-to-day tasks. We’re here to help support.
Here are different ways to encourage employees to sign up for health benefits:
One-pager
Placing all of the benefits of health insurance in one accessible and easy-to-navigate page that is distributed to each employee is a great place to start. A PDF one-pager should have simplified and easy-to-read information for your employees to navigate.
Thoughtfully craft this page by thinking about common questions your employees might ask, then answer those questions. Remember to add a call to action at the end suggesting employees enroll in health benefits. There should be information there for them to easily search for the program, who to contact, and how to enroll in a benefits program.
These one-pagers are physically easy to distribute around the office and electronically throughout your company.
Pamphlets
Similar to one-pagers, pamphlets can contain significant amounts of information, graphics, and contact information for employees to easily see benefit opportunities available. It’s another great option to encourage employees to sign up for benefits and distribute valuable information.
Pamphlets should similarly have a call to action and easy instructions for employees to follow. This guidance helps employees navigate the right next step without having to be directly involved in the process.
Offer a point of contact
Choosing a knowledgeable employee within your business who can answer FAQs is a great way to encourage employees to purchase health benefits. This person could be your health insurance company’s broker or someone within your company with a breadth of knowledge. It helps promote trust with employees because they can ask questions based on their specific needs if other resources don’t answer them.
This point of contact allows you as the employer to provide someone who can be directly involved in the process but allows you the time to continue building your business. They can walk through the process, explain options and directly guide your employees to find the right plan for them.
Text or email campaigns
In our digital world, sometimes the most effective method of facilitating communication is through technology. Text and email campaigns are great tools to use to reach a broad audience.
On average, Americans look at their phones 262 times per day. Texting is a great way to communicate with employees because odds are, they’re looking at their phones quite often.. It’s a less saturated platform and may yield more positive results. Depending on the campaign set-up, employees can reply stating they want to learn more, speak with a broker, or sign up on the spot.
Email campaigns have the same spirit as text messages, but emails can provide much more information than a text message can. The added benefit to an email campaign is its ability to include photos, gifs, graphics, and links to easily route to.
Be clear with a call to action in the email campaign. Also, make sure your email stands out in cluttered inboxes.
Pay stubs
Adding information in paystubs is a great way to promote employee health benefits. The paystub is a guaranteed bi-weekly or monthly occurrence that employees receive either electronically or physically.
Including health insurance information and benefits information along with pay stubs allows employees to look at their financial statements and compare affordability right in front of them.
All of these informational methods aim to educate your employees about how to improve their quality of life. It, in turn, increases your employee’s happiness, health, and retention.
The best method of informing your employees varies from business to business. However, its importance stays the same. Educate and encourage your employees to enroll in health benefits to promote a better workforce.
For more on why you should encourage preventative care in your employee workforce, read on. Then, look at our benefits page to see which affordable MEC plans work best for your company. Our team of reliable expert brokers makes compliance with ACA easy and affordable.
