Prepare for open enrollment with this list of challenges.

Benefits

Open enrollment is here. Are you ready?

Christian Kunkel

As a benefits broker or consultant, you help your employer groups for the better half of a year (or more) prepare for a successful Open Enrollment (OE). While success varies from company to company whether it be increased enrollment rates, decreased questions with HR, or optimized benefits spending, the question that remains constant across organizations is “How satisfied were my employees with the OE process and benefits offered?”

That's where benefits surveys come in!

Empower your clients to ask the right questions with these fundamentals of employee benefits surveys and make sure to grab your ready-to-use benefits survey template at the end of this blog post.

### The Organizational Value of Employee Benefits Surveys
Surveying your employees to determine what they feel about a company’s benefits offerings and processes is important for numerous reasons.

A happy workforce makes for a productive, happy company. [Studies show](https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/documents/resources-whitepapers-health-and-well-being.pdf) that employees who feel their employer cares about their well-being are:
- **38%** more engaged
- **28%** more likely to recommend your organization
- **17%** more likely to stay long-term

Aside from the apparent productivity impact, employee benefits surveys can help at the organizational level.

**1. Attracting Top Talent:** [64% of employees](https://www.reframe.co.uk/blog/employee-benefit-packages-are-the-key-to-top-talent) say that an employer's benefits package is a top consideration when applying for a new job, while 69% would choose one job over another if it offered better perks.

**2. Boosting Retention:** Employee turnover costs a company more than just money. It negatively impacts employee morale, leading to low productivity and a tainted reputation. If employees are happy with the benefits the company offers, they're likely to be more satisfied in their jobs and want to stick around long-term.

**3. Improving Satisfaction and Engagement:** Demonstrating you care about employees’ work-life balance is key to making them feel valued and supported. In turn, you’ll have a more engaged and productive workforce. 

**4. Preventing Misplaced Investments:** Understanding what benefits are meaningful to employees can improve an organization’s benefits allocation to help invest in what can benefit them in the long run. 

### Top Employee Benefits Survey Questions
Using a mix of questions aligned to HR goals and/or recent updates to your benefits portfolio plays a critical role in gaining helpful insights. Bear in mind that the more complex and lengthier the questionnaire is, the greater the risk that participants won't complete it.

**Here are a few categories to consider when developing your survey questions:**
- Healthcare coverage
- Retirement offerings
- Parental leave
- Professional development opportunities
- Open enrollment communications

Conducting employee benefits surveys informs organizations about workforce needs and preferences, enabling them to attract talent, retain employees, improve satisfaction, and allocate resources wisely.

Jumpstart your clients' ability to deploy an employee benefits survey by [downloading this ready-to-share survey template](https://www.nayya.com/2023-OE-Consultant-Toolkit). It includes best-practice questions, answers, and three key tips for successful post-OE survey administration.

Surveying your employees to determine how they feel about a company’s benefits offerings and open enrollment processes is important for retention, employee satisfaction, proper benefits investment allocation, and more.

Blog Posts

Employee Benefits Surveys: A Strategic Tool for HR Teams and Benefits Consultants

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, employers are prioritizing employee well-being, striving to meet their workforces’ diverse needs by offering a wide breadth of benefits. 

This article highlights key points discussed during our recent webinar, _[Proven Strategy to Boost Voluntary Benefits](https://www.nayya.com/vb-webinar-on-demand-lp)_, moderated by Nikhil Naidu, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Nayya, with special guest Sharon Cunninghis, Nayya's VP of Partnerships and a veteran in health and benefits consulting.

### Trends in Health and Benefits

**Let's start with the big picture, what's happening in the health and benefits world today?**

Employers have made great strides over the last few years increasing investments in their workforce and a large part of those investments go towards employee benefits. That includes benefits such as a variety of health plans, access to new point solutions such as mental health applications, and the option to enroll in voluntary benefits like life insurance.

But with more options, comes its own set of hurdles. In order for employees to get the most out of their benefits, they not only need to be aware of their options, but also need to understand them in order to make the best selections for their individual situations.  

**As open enrollment continues to become more complex, what are recurring themes in your conversations with HR leaders regarding benefits utilization, and how can employers overcome these challenges?**

Technology continually comes up. Many HR leaders know they need technology in order to deploy personalized experiences to increase employee awareness and ultimately engagement. So when they’re considering implementing a new solution, keeping options that can address those key issues top of mind is a must, because without new technologies employees are struggling… really struggling.

In fact, even those of us who have worked in the benefits world for years struggle to put together our individual benefits selections. It's like being tasked with putting together a puzzle, but the picture on the cover is missing, so you’re making best guesses at putting together the puzzle. That's how hard it's become to select benefits.

**Going back to voluntary benefits specifically, what are current trends and developments you’re seeing?**

These types of benefits have become more comprehensive over the years. Take critical illness policies for example, they now cover a broader range of services, including wellness benefits.

What most employees don’t know is they can often pay lower total premiums when they combine a medical plan with supplemental health benefits compared to choosing a standalone medical plan. By selecting the right combination, employees can optimize their coverage and reduce out-of-pocket expenses, but the likelihood that they know this is low.

### The Value of Personalized Benefits

**When thinking about benefits personalization, what does it mean to employees and how can technologies like Nayya help?**

Every individual has unique prevention and care needs, decision-making styles, health history, financial situation, and preferences. Employees want, and most importantly need, to have benefits that meet these individual needs. When benefits are personalized, it is easier to appreciate their value. While educating employees about benefits is crucial, Nayya is also focused on providing direction to help employees in both choosing and using their benefits.

Many employees aren't insurance experts, so Nayya simplifies the process by leveraging data and machine learning (ML) to bundle recommended benefits selections (inclusive of clinical care point solutions and voluntary benefits), so employees are shown relevant **personalized** scenarios that assist them in understanding how all these benefits work together.

**Nayya intakes a lot of very personal data about individuals and their families. Can you talk a little bit about what we do on the data security and privacy side?**

Data privacy and security are at the core of everything we do. We recognize that brand safety and trust are increasingly important in today’s new digital reality, and nowhere is this more evident than in how your data is collected, used, and protected. We’ve heavily invested in our security framework and take a privacy-forward approach with all of our products and services.

We’re SOC 2, HIPAA, and CCPA compliant so employers and employees can be confident that personal data is well protected. In addition, all individual employee data shared with Nayya is kept completely confidential and will not be provided to anyone, including employers.

### Nayya In Action

**Despite the value and affordability of these plans, voluntary benefits enrollment remains low. Can you explain why you think that is and how organizations can address these challenges to increase participation?**

I teased this earlier, but one of the main reasons is the overwhelming number of choices employees are facing. Frankly, it's daunting, especially without support. Also, very few people are insurance experts, so the average person has no idea what a supplemental health policy is, what the benefits are, and why they should choose it.

To increase voluntary benefits participation, it’s important to focus holistically on a plan including communication, education, personalization, flexibility, and simplifying the enrollment process through the use of technology.

In the past, insurance carriers and consultants used to explain coverages at the worksite, but this approach is costly and time-consuming. Today, solutions like Nayya offer a tech-enabled alternative.

We think of Nayya’s technology as a “benefits delivery” platform because it can help employers and consultants focus on these factors and implement their specific benefits strategy. By using data and ML, Nayya can quickly uncover personal effects such as:
- “How much did I spend on my medical deductible over the past year?” 
- “What does my financial picture look like?”
- “Does my lifestyle make supplemental coverage more important for me?”
- “How much should I contribute to my HSA based on my income?”  

**What kind of results have organizations seen after implementing Nayya?**

The impact greatly varies based on the organization’s goals. Overall, organizations experience higher benefits literacy, less time spent by HR teams answering benefits questions, and increased voluntary benefits participation.

For example, some organizations have launched Nayya looking to maximize the adoption of a new medical plan. Recently, a [mid-sized group rolled out a new high deductible plan](https://www.nayya.com/blog/discover-how-pegasus-senior-living-embraced-data-science-to-transform-their-employee-benefits-experience) and we saw 22% adoption in the first year. We also see organizations looking to pass cost savings to employees by helping them choose healthcare plans that will facilitate a lower total cost of care. For one of those organizations, we saw 13% of users migrating to a more cost-effective plan.

We have many groups primarily looking to increase overall awareness of and engagement with benefits. Nayya users are 54% more likely to participate in voluntary benefits, contribute 14% more to HSAs, and 75% of Nayya users felt more confident making their benefits decisions.

Ultimately, Nayya’s recommendation becomes an important tool for groups to successfully execute their benefits strategy because we’re solving the benefits comprehension challenge facing consumers. 

**As OE planning is well underway and a lot of organizations are quite far along in the planning process, what does implementation look like?**

The launch process with Nayya is quick and hands-off for employer groups. We handle most of the work, including data collection, building communication plans, and configuring the Nayya platform. Employers or consultants typically get involved during the quality assurance process. The implementation typically takes around 30 days, allowing organizations to be ready for open enrollment.

### Getting Started with Nayya

As benefit offerings increase in complexity, it is more important than ever to have a strong benefits delivery strategy, inclusive of voluntary benefits education. Technology platforms like Nayya add the necessary personalization to significantly improve benefits utilization, increase benefits literacy and drive engagement.

If you’re a consultant or employer interested in leveraging our partnerships and technology to enhance your clients' benefits strategies, you can [reach out to us directly](https://www.nayya.com/get-demo), or [learn more about our partnerships](http://www.nayya.com/our-partners).

Why employees are underutilizing their benefits and how Nayya contributes to a strong benefits delivery strategy.

Q&A: How to Unlock Benefits Participation — Why Employees Underutilize Voluntary Benefits

_63% of employees aren’t confident when choosing benefit plans that best fit their unique needs_

Today, Prudential Financial, Inc. announced it has formed a strategic partnership with leading benefits experience platform, Nayya, to harness artificial intelligence and data science to empower employees to make better workplace benefits decisions. The new partnership will allow Prudential clients to take advantage of Nayya’s benefits decision support tool during open enrollment, which will help employees better understand benefit options and make smart decisions.

As healthcare costs and complexity continue to increase in the U.S., many employees are confused about how to navigate their benefits in an affordable, cost-effective manner. According to recent research, 63% of employees don’t understand their benefits, despite the billions of dollars invested in benefits education by companies. Prudential is excited to offer Nayya to its clients to take advantage of their employee health and financial wellness data to provide real-time personalized benefits recommendations, as well as year-round guidance, in order to maximize benefits and help employees make the best, most affordable choices for themselves and their families.

“At Prudential Group Insurance, we want employers to be able to better educate and engage their employees during moments that matter,” said Michael Estep, Head of Product for Prudential. "We are transforming the enrollment experience by providing simple, yet powerful ways to help employers be the rock their employees can rely on when it comes to selecting the right workplace benefits.” 

"Our partnership with Prudential is a key milestone to employee empowerment. In an ever-changing world where employers are spending more on benefits than ever before, employees need to make informed decisions about their health and financial wellness," said Sina Chehrazi, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Nayya. "Prudential’s leadership is bringing innovation to the benefits experience with scale and pace. It will change the trajectory of our industry and our ecosystem in positive ways.” 

You can view the full press release [here](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230713368288/en/), and for additional information, please visit [nayya.com](https://www.nayya.com).


**About Prudential Financial** Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a global financial services leader and premier active global investment manager with approximately $1.4 trillion in assets under management as of March 31, 2023, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prudential’s diverse and talented employees help make lives better and create financial opportunity for more people by expanding access to investing, insurance, and retirement security. Prudential’s iconic Rock symbol has stood for strength, stability, expertise, and innovation for nearly 150 years. For more information, please visit news.prudential.com.

Prudential Group Insurance manufactures and distributes a full range of group life, long-term and short-term disability and corporate and trust-owned life insurance in the U.S. to institutional clients primarily for use within employee and membership benefit plans. The business also sells critical illness, accidental death and dismemberment and other ancillary coverages. In addition, the business provides plan administrative services in connection with its insurance coverages, and administrative services for employee paid and unpaid leave, including FMLA, ADA, and PFL.

**About Nayya** Founded in 2019, Nayya is a new age, software and data infrastructure company transforming the way employees understand, choose and use their benefits, driving better financial outcomes for employees and employers. Year round, Nayya analyzes data to ensure that the right benefits and point solutions are provided to employees when they need it most. Nayya’s mission to give consumers financial peace on their best days, and confidence on their worst. Nayya is headquartered in New York, NY. For more information, please visit [https://www.nayya.com](https://www.nayya.com).


**Media Contacts**

**<u>Prudential Financial</u>**
Marisa Amador,  
973.802.8969, 
[marisa.amador@prudential.com](marisa.amador@prudential.com)

**<u>Nayya</u>**
Kate Caballero,  
646.932.2719, 
[kcaballero@nayya.com](kcaballero@nayya.com)

Leveraging Nayya as a key component of the Prudential experience introduces data science and AI-technology to personalize enrollment with data-driven guidance and education to help them make the right benefit decisions.

Open enrollment is here. Are you ready?

Get Prepared with 7 Challenges Employees Face During Benefits Enrollment

Suggested Content

Employee Benefits Surveys: A Strategic Tool for HR Teams and Benefits Consultants

Q&A: How to Unlock Benefits Participation — Why Employees Underutilize Voluntary Benefits

Prudential and Nayya Partner to Bring Personalized Benefits to Millions of American Employees

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