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If you have budget woes, you're not alone. For starters, 63% of employees say their financial stress has increased since the start of the pandemic, according to a recent PwC study. Sprinkle in a bit of inflation and add a dash of rising gas prices-it's a recipe for even more wallet worries.
Needless to say, your employees are looking for ways to save money. And what better way to help them save than by guiding them with their Health Savings Account (HSA)? In order for your people to get the most out of your HSA benefit, you need to think beyond education and focus on engagement. But how do you keep employees engaged with their HSA? Before you feel the need to drop everything and start acting like a quasi-marketing agency, try these four tips.
1. Drive HSA adoption
The most important way to improve HSA engagement? Increase employee enrollment. Look for opportunities to drive HSA adoption during these critical moments:
- When you bring on new hires
- When existing employees have qualifying life events
- In the weeks leading up to and during annual open enrollment
New Hires
As you onboard new employees, personalize your HSA offerings by speaking to their specific needs and interests. For example, try tailoring the conversation around employer contributions when talking to younger employees and retirement planning when talking to older employees.
Qualifying Life Events
A qualifying life event (QLE)-such as losing health coverage, moving, getting married, having a baby, or adopting a child-may trigger a special enrollment period in which a person can make plan changes or sign up for new health insurance coverage. This includes enrolling in an HSA-qualified high deductible health plan. During a QLE, reach out proactively to encourage your employees to consider an HSA.
Annual Open Enrollment
According to an analysis of 700 employers partnered with HealthEquity, active open enrollment led to a 39 percent increase in HSA adoption over seven years. Take advantage of open enrollment by educating employees with helpful resources such as webinars and online tools.
2. Promote positive habits
Want to keep employees engaged with their benefits long after open enrollment? Implement a simplified marketing approach. Rather than focusing your efforts solely on open enrollment, create a communications calendar to strategically promote benefits all year. If at all possible, lean on creative professionals to write and design engaging social media content, videos, and webinars.
3. Track your progress
As you work on new ways to increase employee engagement, don't forget to take measurements of your progress. By gathering data, you will be able to build on your successes and know what to improve. The exact metrics you should track will vary, but may include:
- Total employee account contributions, distributions, and savings
- Employee retirement readiness
- Status of employees' safety nets
- Engagement metrics such as amount of clicks, opens, or likes
Once you've identified ways to track your progress, you can uncover any roadblocks and make adjustments to your strategies. Some examples of using data to target specific roadblocks include sending contribution reminders to people with less than $1,000 in their HSA or experimenting with different subject lines and send times to maximize your email open rate.
4. Keep learning and improving
Like anything else, campaigning your benefits program takes practice. By tuning in to the needs of your employees, carrying out an effective marketing campaign, and tracking your progress as you go, you will multiply your chances of increasing engagement, and in turn, helping your people.
Get a head start with Engage360
Implementing a successful HSA program takes time, marketing know-how, complex data analytics capabilities, and so much more. All told, this can make it difficult for organizations to meet the demands of the market. The good news is you don't have to do it alone. Get familiar with Engage360, our member engagement hub designed specifically for benefits professionals. Engage360 features analytics tools, professional training and all the support you need to make your program a success.
HealthEquity does not provide legal, tax, financial or medical advice. Always consult a professional when making life-changing decisions.
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