2 Tips to Increase Hourly Employee Participation in Open Enrollment by 40%+ 

According to a study by Shiftboard, more than half of all hourly employees surveyed said they would take a pay cut in order to gain health benefits. And, in this “once in a generation” super tight labor market for hourly employees, more and more companies are offering this benefit to their hourly employees as a mechanism to increase retention. In fact, according to the most recent BLS Report, health care benefits were available to 71 percent of private industry workers. Companies know that if they have an hourly employee taking advantage of the company’s health care plan, it makes it a lot harder for them to leave and go someplace that doesn’t have an equivalent type of plan; regardless if the hourly rate is higher across the street and they’re paying hiring bonuses.

One of the biggest challenges we hear about from companies is that they don’t have a way to easily let their frontline hourly employees know when open enrollment season is taking place or have an easy way for them to take advantage and enroll. And, thus, companies don’t have the participation level that they’d ideally like to see.

So, here are two quick tips that we’ve seen our customers do that increased their hourly employees’ participation in Open Enrollment - in some cases by as much as 40%.

1. Text Frontline Hourly Employees the Open Enrollment Link

Text your hourly employees the Open Enrollment link as soon as Open Enrollment kicks off. This direct form of communication makes it so much easier for them to just tap and complete the enrollment process directly from their phones.  

2. Text Two Reminders

After sending the initial text, schedule two reminder texts to go out to your hourly employees just in case they missed it the first time because they were busy, forgot, etc. And, be sure to include information like the deadline for enrollment. 

Signing up for healthcare coverage can be confusing and stressful for employees in general, so making the process as simple as possible by meeting them on the devices they already are on is the best way to ensure participation. 

If you’re an employer who offers health benefits to your hourly workers, leverage that to  drive retention by making sure they know about it and can easily enroll!