For now, gone are the days of posting important information in break rooms, and placing fliers on desks. The benefits your company provides to employees are an important piece of their company commitment. Now, with COVID-19, benefits are more important than ever. Perhaps because of COVID-19, this year your company will be offering virtual open enrollment. It is benefits that allow them to take time off when they or a loved one is sick, and it’s benefits that get them through some of life’s most challenging times. If everyone is working virtually, it may not do well for your strategy to be to print bundles of fliers. If nobody is in the office to see these things, then the information will be lost and employees will be confused about how their benefits are changing and how they can opt into those changes.

Preparing to deliver the messaging about how benefits are changing and how open enrollment will be different will require working out strategy months in advance. Benefits enrollment is challenging already, so prepare for the challenge to be even greater. This is why how you advertise the benefits and enrollment must be effective.

Create content that delivers a clear message regarding any new benefits available to employees, and have a plan for how you’re going to distribute that content. Posting messages on the company intranet, through email, during video conferences, webinars, and social media are just a few channels where you can reach your employees by virtual means. Another key area to reach out to employees is through text messaging.

No matter how many of these channels you utilize, it’s important that you track the effectiveness of how they work. Getting feedback from employees and see what knowledge they are gaining regarding virtual open enrollment, and which avenue they were more likely to gather this information. Knowing this information will help to improve your information distribution strategy.

You can even use software to help you gauge engagement. If you post videos, track the viewing stats, click-throughs, and how long employees spend watching the content. What devices are they most likely to view content on? You can gather this information through your web site’s stats. Are they more likely to view it on their phones, or through their computers? Knowing this can help in how you design your messages.