As your open enrollment period gets closer, you can look for ways for the process to go more smoothly. Good communication is crucial for employees during open enrollment. Text messaging is the most efficient way for your employees to communicate with your HR department. While emails can be useful, they can get be missed easily. Text messages are generally read within three minutes, and it is the fastest way to reach out to all of your employees. When you are trying to make your open enrollment period easier, it’s time to consider text messaging software.
Text messaging benefits your HR department and makes open enrollment easier because:
Employees are informed about open enrollment before it starts. To get employees thinking about their benefit package, send out a quick text before the time comes to begin signing up for benefits. Help your employees avoid mistakes by providing plenty of notice about the upcoming enrollment period. Whether an employee is currently satisfied with their benefits or they are looking for a new plan, knowing that it’s almost time to renew a benefits plan gets employees thinking about their coverage.
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Employees get motivated to enroll. A text message to encourage your employees to sign up for benefits will give your staff a little push to sign up for benefits on time. When you use text messaging, it is clear that your employee is receiving your message. Emails can get lost, while text messages are often read within minutes.
Links to benefit plans can be shared. Your HR department has plenty of links to useful plan information, and sharing these links is easy with text messaging. Instead of waiting for employees to bombard your HR department with all kinds of questions, you can send out informational materials through a simple link. After reading the material, your employees can text questions back to the HR department to get clarification about certain plans. Open enrollment becomes easier when it’s simple to ask questions through text messaging.
Meetings are simple to schedule through texting. The open enrollment period is a time when your HR department is busy trying to meet with each employee for benefits administration. To make the process easier, you can allow employees to schedule meetings with HR through text messaging. If a meeting time needs to be changed, this can be done easily through a text message. A reminder about the upcoming meeting can be sent automatically, ensuring the employee attends the benefits meeting as scheduled.
FAQs can be answered with automation. There are usually a number of frequently asked questions during the open enrollment period that can be answered through automation. An employee can text a keyword to HR, and an automated response will be generated. For more information, text “OPEN” to 76000 to see an example of how you can improve your open enrollment with SMS, including sending an automated response that will alert your employees when their meeting is scheduled.
Reminders are simple to send. One of the hardest parts of the open enrollment period is keeping everyone organized. Your HR department will have the ability to send out reminders to employees that the open enrollment period is about to close. In addition, reminders to complete paperwork can be sent out. If text messages aren’t working, your HR department can then resort to more time-consuming phone calls.
Once your HR department uses text messaging during open enrollment, you will see the process go more smoothly. Employees will have the ability to ask quick questions, and your HR department will be able to remind staff that it’s time to sign necessary paperwork.
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