How to create benefits enrollment experience goals using the S.M.A.R.T. technique

Creating a premium benefits experience is a key way companies differentiate themselves in a competitive labor market. But, too often, benefits selection is treated as an annual event instead of an ongoing and evolving journey. 

However, with clear goal-setting, you can increase employee satisfaction and loyalty while strengthening your company’s appeal to new candidates. With that in mind, let’s discuss how to create benefits enrollment experience goals that will help you strengthen the employee benefits experience and differentiate your business in today’s competitive labor market.

Define your benefits enrollment experience goals using S.M.A.R.T.

When helping our benefits administration clients with goal-setting strategies, we often recommend employing the S.M.A.R.T. goal technique. Using this method allows HR teams to concisely describe specific benefits enrollment goals, identify the metric they will use for measurement, and establish the time frame in which they wish to accomplish the goal.

To start, think about the type of actionable behaviors you want to improve. Check out our examples of S.M.A.R.T. goals below:

Improve employee benefits communication

After you define your goals, you will want to think through ways to promote your benefits offerings and reinforce employee behavior to reach your desired outcomes.

For example, WEX benefits administration clients can take advantage of our custom communication workshops where we consult with key stakeholders to create a campaign, creative theme, and point of focus around a specific enrollment goal, or particular benefit offering for employee education outreach.

These communication tactics can be especially useful if you’re updating major health insurance options, like switching to a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) or adding a health savings account (HSA) and want to measure the outcomes of these changes.

Or, perhaps you want to increase the overall number of employees who take advantage of your decision support tool. In such cases, providing incentives (such as raffle entries for a popular tech gadget) to employees who try the tool during open enrollment can be a powerful tactic to help drive awareness and usage.

Looking for more ways to improve the benefits enrollment experience at your company? Check out this episode of our Benefits podcast to learn how to build a year-round benefits communication plan!

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own counsel.