Most organizations find employee turnover frustrating – and expensive. The investment into recruitment and training is one factor. But the cost of lowered customer satisfaction or losing customers from dealing with less experienced personnel is incalculable.

What can be done? One thing is spend a lot of money upping pay and benefits to a point people just won’t leave. But that can be a tough sell in the executive offices.    Two recent studies have suggested there is a better way…a much better way.   

1. Better Benefits Communications

Analyses shared within the Health e(fx) 2018 Insights Report reveal some unique findings on the benefit preferences shown by different generations. The analytics show the average stint for employees who are not enrolled in health benefits is 3.1 years versus 6.7 years for those enrolled in employee-only and 9.7 years for those enrolled in family coverage. The survey found that the length of tenure increases even more with better benefits.

In general, we know that the younger employees are accustomed to immediate gratification. They are more likely to shop for employers who can enable them to live the lifestyle they desire. They will soon dominate the workforce, forcing better benefits which can impact your budget – and the longevity of your employee’s tenure.

Clearly, spending money and effort on communicating and enrolling benefits got more bang for the buck than spending money on the benefits alone.

2. Put Voluntary Benefits Work to Work for You

The second salvo in the war on turnover comes from a recent study done by our firm, that specializes in benefit communication and enrollment. Typically, we include voluntary benefits when enrolling benefits for clients. Looking at the one-year persistency of enrollment in voluntary benefits and comparing it to the overall turnover for each group, we found a positive link between enrollment in voluntary benefits and lower turnover.

In looking at turnover data for one of their clients, an auto parts retailer with employees in every state, BenefitVision found that after two years, 76% of the employees who signed up for voluntary benefits were still employed at the company versus 52% of employees over all.

For another client, a nationwide household goods retailer, the numbers showed that 83% of the employees who signed up for voluntary benefits were still on the job at the end of the year versus 70% for the employees in general.

In both of these cases the results are absolutely clear, employees enrolled in voluntary benefits are significantly more likely to stay on the job than those not enrolled.

The Benefits Manager notes, “This is terrific. Turnover is expensive. The cost of replacing employees directly impacts our bottom line both in direct cost and in customer satisfaction. The combination of better benefit communication and voluntary benefits obviously has an impact.”

Doubling the Firepower

BenefitVision has a unique approach that not only boosts an organization’s benefit communication success and provides voluntary benefits; we do not charge the employer. The process doubles the employers’ benefit investment by substantially reducing turnover, without added expense to the executive suite.

Funding for this process comes by offering voluntary benefits as part of the menu of benefits already available to the employees. By using this approach, BenefitVision provides an outstanding level of personalized communication, more choices for employees to consider, and considerably lowers costs for the employer.

Turnover Turned Over     

The power of voluntary benefits to act as ‘golden handcuffs’ works across the board with essentially all of our clients,” states Ron Kleiman, BenefitVision, Chief Executive Officer. “Offering voluntary benefits that provide employees more options, combined with the impact of better communication, as evidenced by the Health e(fx) 2018 Insights Report, is a great opportunity to turn an organization’s turnover numbers right around.”

BACKGROUND

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg employs about 3,000 employees. In 2017 they had 430 new hires. Actually, almost 89% of the employees who were there at the beginning of the year were there at the end of the year, but even 430 new hires represent a lot of work.

They wanted help streamlining their onboarding process to include 130 locations, and to establish a centralized support system to assist in explaining and communicating the value of their benefits to different classes of employees, and to introduce new benefits.

Their methodology had utilizing Principals or Priests to hand out the information to their individual employees. The staff of the Benefits Department manually input the data for each benefit election, or status change directly into the carrier website to enroll or cancel coverage. Every year, the HR Director would travel on a “road show” to specific locations to communicate changes, copays, deductibles and rates for Open Enrollment.

Different classes of employees received different benefit structures and offerings. They had huge challenges onboarding their large group of newly hired teachers in August.

GUIDED ENROLLMENT SERVICES HELP EMPLOYEES ALL YEAR ROUND

BenefitVision helps the Diocese get critical messages across to all of their locations. Our Creative Department deploys every communication tool available to spread the word about the new enrollment methods.

All employees just pick up the phone, at their convenience, and talk to a Benefits Representative. New hires are given a complete benefit orientation. Every employee can follow along in an Enrollment Workbook as the Benefit Representative guides them through their benefit options, answering all their questions as they go. The Benefit Representative simply enters the employee’s decisions into the benefits administration system, which is the Database of Record for their vendors and Human Resources. The calls are recorded and stored for seven years if a verification is necessary.

We introduce a permanent Life Insurance policy with Long Term Care benefits as well as a Term Life policy. Both have guaranteed issue underwriting. Additionally, an Accident Plan for families, and a Critical Illness Insurance plan are offered. Employees appreciate the personalized attention they get. The organization is delighted to have the features of the core and voluntary benefits explained and enrolled with electronic signatures. There was an even higher retention rate among those employees who enrolled for voluntary benefits.