As employee engagement continues to drift downward, organizations everywhere are looking for more efficient, effective ways to connect and communicate with their workforce. This is especially true for employee benefits education, where access to clear, complete and timely information is critical.
What better way to help employees understand their benefits than with video? In this article, we’ll explore why video is such an effective form of outreach, along with five ways you can use it to improve benefits education.
Why is Video Ideal for This Purpose?
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But what about video? In the business world, its popularity as a communication tool has skyrocketed over the past decade. And the pandemic only added fuel to the fire by forcing employers to shift toward video for internal communications.
Now, many organizations recognize just how powerful video can be in employee education. Why?
- When people see and hear information within the context of a video, they’re more likely to understand and remember the message.
- Video tutorials and walkthroughs are a great way to break down complex topics into manageable, memorable “bites.”
- Video content is also highly shareable, so employees can easily pass information along and discuss it with others.
5 Ways to Enhance Benefits Education With Video
1. Offer Benefits Portal Tutorials and Walkthroughs
To ensure employees know how to navigate your benefits portal, it’s important to provide proper instruction. But with video, it’s no longer necessary to bombard people with lengthy written documentation.
Instead, brief tutorials are a great way to give employees a guided tour of your benefits site. Even a few quick, easy-to-follow videos can make all the difference in introducing employees to the portal so they become more comfortable conducting research and serving themselves.
2. Create Enrollment Screencasts
Enrolling in benefits can be daunting, especially when people are unfamiliar with the process. Rather than sending out lengthy written instructions or expecting employees to figure it out independently, you can use screencasting to walk them through the entire process, step-by-step. This helps people understand the open enrollment process, so they don’t become confused or frustrated by complexity.
Offering useful screencasts requires thoughtful upfront planning and production. But in the long run, it can save your benefits administrators significant time, by reducing the volume of routine questions and issues they must resolve.
3. Focus on Key Topics of Interest
Instructional videos are a terrific option if you want to provide more in-depth information about particular benefits topics. These videos can cover anything from an overview of your company’s health insurance plans, to guidance on how to use key portal features.
This is also a smart way to address common concerns or misconceptions employees may have about selecting or managing their benefits. By providing clear, concise information in a compelling visual format, you can help employees better understand every aspect of their benefits and how to use them.
4. Conduct Virtual Benefits Fairs
If your company offers a variety of benefits, staging a virtual benefits fair can be a useful way to consolidate information into a highly accessible “all-in-one” live online experience. Plus, you can record the sessions and make them available on-demand so employees can attend at their convenience.
Your programming could involve a series of short videos covering each benefit category. These sessions could be followed by an interactive Q&A session, where employees can ask questions of an expert at your company or from a related benefits vendor. This gives participants access to the information they need to make better-informed decisions.
5. Produce Video Testimonials
One of the most compelling ways to engage employees in benefits education is to illustrate how others are using these benefits. And what better way to do this than with video testimonials that let members of your workforce tell their story in their own words?
Featured employees can talk about why and how they selected specific benefits to improve their health, save for financial goals, or improve their quality of life. This not only helps others feel comfortable about their benefits decisions, even as it reinforces your organization’s commitment to workforce wellbeing.
Video Engagement Best Practices
Now that we’ve explored ways to use video to engage your employees in benefits education, let’s look at some best practices to keep in mind when creating any video content:
- Be sure to put the audience’s interests first. What are their needs? What information do they want to see? How much time are they likely to invest in consuming this content? What should their next move be?
- Strive to keep your videos short and to the point. Employees are busy and often can’t devote time or attention to long-form content.
- Always test videos before you launch and promote them. Make sure they work correctly from end-to-end, and that employees can understand the concepts you’re trying to communicate. This will ensure a positive, productive enrollment experience for employees and support your broader organizational goals.
- Don’t forget the marketing outreach needed to make employees aware of any education resources. Unseen video has little value, so be sure you invest in communication that will lead people to your educational content.
Closing Notes
Helping employees understand their benefits is crucial for employers and human resources departments. If you haven’t considered using video to communicate this information, you’re missing an opportunity to present complex benefits information in a way that is meaningful, quick and easy for employees to access. And in the long run, this self-service content can save your HR team significant time and money.
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