Email is still a tried and true way of notifying employees about important HR announcements, and open enrollment is no exception.

However, the days of the ‘stray and pray’ approach to email are over. Employee communications are more important than ever and following best practices is an absolute must to make the most of your efforts.

If you want to take your employee communications to the next level, follow these 5 open enrollment email best practices to better engage employees and drive action.

Attention-Grabbing Subject Line

The subject line is the very first thing employees will see in their inbox, which, by the way, is probably already crammed full of work-related communications. In fact, the average employee receives and sends more than 200 emails per day!

Make sure your HR emails are seen and opened quickly by using an attention-grabbing headline.

“Open Enrollment [year]” simply won’t do. Instead, experiment with phrases that create excitement or a sense of urgency. Mix things up with fun emojis or symbols. If your open enrollment platform allows, use personalization features to insert the employee’s name directly into the subject. And, be sure to keep your subject lines concise to avoid the dreaded cut-off. The average phone only shows the first 25 characters, so keep it short and to the point.

Here are a few ideas of different subject lines you can use throughout the open enrollment period:

“[name], It’s Time For A Celebration (party emoji)”

[OE announcement, ‘celebration’ theme]

“The (company name) Benefits Library Is Open For Business”

[Video Library/Website Announcement]

“Ready. Set. Enroll! OE Is Open”

[OE Start Announcement, ‘sports’ theme]

“(alarm emoji) Only ONE day left – don’t miss these perks!”

[OE Final Announcement, Only employees who have not enrolled yet]

Simple Structure

Huge blocks of text are intimidating and often ignored. Instead of presenting all of your information in one large email, simplify your messages, break them into several shorter emails if necessary and break up the text into easy to understand sections.

Here’s a quick example:

Subject Line: “[name], It’s Time For A Celebration (party emoji)”

[Employee Name],

We are excited to announce this year’s open enrollment dates: Monday, November 5th – Friday, November 16th.

We will be hosting three educational webinars to review this year’s plan options and to address any questions you might have. Invitations for these will be sent this afternoon – please RSVP to the session you plan to attend.

What you’ll need to enroll:

• [item]
• [item]
• [item]

Where to Enroll: www.plansource.com/login

Don’t forget, you can access our company benefits website at any time to review plan materials, the 2019 benefits guideand our free, on-demand benefits video library.

As always, feel free to reach out to HR with any specific questions or concerns.

Happy enrolling!

Check out our free OE email templates to get started.

Include Links

Do employees need to log in to a portal to make their benefits elections? Give them the link.

Do you have a handy benefits website or video library chock full of educational materials? Give them the link.

Do you have online resources for employees to reference before enrollment? Give them the link.

Don’t make employees work to have to find the information they need when they need it the most. Make sure your emails include direct links to any important resource or website you reference!

Use Video

Actions speak louder than words, and video speaks louder than text. Do you have an important subject or point that you really want to drive home? If so, video is the way to go.

Video Fast Fact: Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it on video compared to only 10% when reading it in written text.

Start OE on a high note with a snazzy open enrollment video postcard. These short, animated videos announce your open enrollment period and let employees know exactly what to expect. From there, share individual videos related to specific plan details that are frequently questioned (ex: HDHP) or, better yet, share a link to your full educational video library.

Learn more about how you can use video for employee benefits education.

Clear Call To Action

Do you want employees to complete a specific action? If so – tell them! Using a clear call to action will eliminate any confusion about the point of your email. It will also help ensure that your email communications have a point to begin with. Call to action examples include “enroll now” with a link to your platform login page and “learn more about our new HSA offering” with a link to an HSA-specific video in your video library.