This well known publisher of children's books had a good story to tell. In addition to maintaining and even reducing costs for certain health care plans (HMOs, dental, and vision), the company introduced several new vendors to improve employee service, as well as new plan options to help employees balance their life at work and at home.

Objectives

Our client partnered with XL to develop a comprehensive communications strategy designed to engage and inform employees. Before we began, we identified and developed the following objectives in support of our overarching goals:

• Develop an exciting “brand identity” for our benefit communications that was inviting and reflective of the client’s diverse workforce and culture.

• Encourage 8,500 employees to attend enrollment meetings to increase awareness and understanding of the entire benefits program and the new plan options, and help them make “informed” decisions.

Challenges

• Getting employees to “take notice” and actively participate in the enrollment process. Some employees would have to change their medical plan option to avoid defaulting into an option they might not want. We had to ensure that this scenario did not overshadow the good news we were telling.

• Keeping up with a moving target. Vendor selection and plan design decisions were being finalized right up to the last minute. In addition, special needs and requests from their divisions required us to “spin off” alternate versions of certain elements.

• Delivering multiple messages. The client was also changing their 401(k) administrator effective January 1, which meant we would have to communicate critical dates and plan updates at the same time we were communicating changes to the benefits program.

• Garnering consensus on the new “brand” of the entire campaign. For this client, the “look” of the materials was just as important  and conveyed as much meaning  as the written word.

Solutions

To kickoff the campaign, we sent a postcard to each employee’s home announcing the enrollment dates, alerting employees to important plan changes and encouraging them to attend an enrollment meeting.

We also created division specific newsletters providing highlights of the changes for 2005, plus meeting schedules for each division. To keep the momentum going, we developed posters for display near entryways, cafeterias, meeting rooms, etc., plus 19 one-page flyers focusing on different aspects of the updated benefits program, or serving as reminders for key dates and events.

The cornerstone of the campaign was a comprehensive enrollment kit containing the following:

• What’s in this Kit?

• Enrollment Guide

• ligibility and Benefit Costs Worksheet (multiple versions for differences among divisions)

• Medical Comparison

• Wallet Card (telephone and web URLs for all vendors).

Results

Throughout the open enrollment period we held weekly “Pulse” meetings, or teleconferences, with meeting leaders from each division and regional office to obtain feedback from employees about the communications, in addition to learning more about issues that needed further communication support.

This is what we heard:

• “Employees greatly appreciated all of the advance communication and were fully aware of all of the changes being made for 2005. While some weren’t happy that some of their medical plan options were going away, they were very receptive to the new Plan that was being introduced in its place.”

• “Meetings have gone extremely well…one of the best years ever.”

• “Communications were fantastic.”

• “Newsletter was great!”

• “Everyone was well prepared and people were very appreciative and happy.”

• “These were our best meetings ever.”

• “The “Spotlight On Open Enrollment” newsletter and enrollment materials were a big hit.

• "We encouraged employees to read them ahead of time and, as a result, we received very few questions.”

• “The advance communications (newsletter) really helped.”

• “Because everything was so well written, employees had very few questions.”