The Hire thru Retire Podcast
AI, Innovation and Employee Engagement with Ana Perez
Today’s episode features host Nate Black, vice president, Health Solutions Product Development. With open enrollment in full swing, the conversation continues with Ana Perez, Chief Marketing Officer at Benefitfocus. Recent discussions have focused on the important role education plays when it comes to helping workers with their annual enrollment decisions. Today, Ana and Nate discuss how personalization and guidance can also play critical roles in helping employees not just enroll in their workplace benefits, but also ensuring they know how to use them throughout the year. Tune in to hear more helpful insights for your workforce this open enrollment season.
Products and services offered through the Voya® family of companies.
CN3199853_1025
Today’s episode features host Nate Black, vice president, Health Solutions Product Development. With open enrollment in full swing, the conversation continues with Ana Perez, Chief Marketing Officer at Benefitfocus. Recent discussions have focused on the important role education plays when it comes to helping workers with their annual enrollment decisions. Today, Ana and Nate discuss how personalization and guidance can also play critical roles in helping employees not just enroll in their workplace benefits, but also ensuring they know how to use them throughout the year. Tune in to hear more helpful insights for your workforce this open enrollment season.
Products and services offered through the Voya® family of companies.
CN3199853_1025
You are listening to The Hire Through Retire podcast, brought to you by Voya Financial. We are talking to the best and brightest in the industry to bring you the latest in benefits, savings, and investment trends in the workplace, tackling all things from 4 0 1 kss to HSAs and everything in between. Come along with us on our journey to help all individuals become well-planned, well invested and well protected.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Hire Through Retire podcast. I'm Nate Black and I lead our health Solutions product development team here at Voya. And I'm very excited to be back again as your host for today's episode . Some of our frequent listeners might know that we're in full swing of open enrollment discussions right now. And so today we're here to continue the conversation. We talked recently about the important role education plays when it comes to helping workers with their annual enrollment decisions, and part of that comes with offering a truly consumer driven experience. So joining me today to talk more about this is an individual who is certainly a pro when it comes to helping employees not just understand their workplace benefits, but also ensuring that they know how to use them . And that is Anna Perez, chief Marketing Officer at Benefit Focus as CMO. Anna manages all aspects of benefit focused brand demand generation and customer advocacy efforts, including public relations, internal communications, solution marketing events, and go to market strategies. She's a data-driven marketing leader and drives her team to deliver tangible value to the business. Anna , you're a busy woman. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here with you today, Nate.
Speaker 2:Anna. We're here today to talk about how industry players can better connect with and engage today's workforce. But before we do that , let me set the stage a bit for our listeners. Benefit focus is a benefits administration provider who delivers technology solutions that make it easier to simplify employee benefits administration, increase workforce engagement, and provide end-to-end experiences for health plans to achieve digital transformation. With that as the backdrop, I'm gonna start broad here and ask, in your opinion, what does the future of workplace benefits look like?
Speaker 3:So to me, two words come to mind when I think about the future of of benefits and, and the first one is connected. So Nate, you and I talk about this a lot, right? When we think about our employer clients, but also their employees and The experience that they have to navigate as it relates to their benefits historically has been very disconnected. You know, you make individual decisions about different lines of coverage or different products or programs that are being offered by your employer, but there's no real guidance around how those different programs might work together. And so what's the appropriate bundle of solutions to enroll in or how does one decision about one product set impact the other? And so when I think about the future of of the benefits experience, I really think about a connected experience and how can I as a consumer take a more holistic approach to thinking about all of the different things that I have access to as part of my employment and as part of the investment that my employer is making in me. I think the second word that comes to mind, which I know it's something we talk about a lot and maybe has become a buzzword, but is, is personalized. And so, you know, not only is it important to connect the experience, but as a, as a busy employee and mother, you know, to me what's also very relevant is make it relevant to me. How do you help guide me to the right programs and, and solutions or or packages based on what my personal goals are, where I'm at in my stage of life? And so, you know, I think about the experience that I have everywhere else it seems in, in, you know, consumer , uh, retail, but has not yet really come to fruition on the benefits space. And so how do you help guide me based on everything you know about me to what's gonna be most relevant so that I can make smarter decisions, not just that open enrollment, but throughout the year as I'm taking advantage of those programs.
Speaker 2:I love that vision and uh , and connected and personalized. There's a ton of power there where a lot of people we find don't understand their benefits, they don't understand the value they're getting from them. They may not understand how they fit together. And so I , I completely agree that is where we need to head as an industry. As you think about open enrollment and just that level of understanding around benefits, employers spend a lot of time working on education and we know benefits guides are a big part of open enrollment and employers and their partners spend a lot of time putting work in to demonstrate the value of their benefits package to their employees. But is there any advice you'd have , um, to provide to employers and our listeners about how they can best really educate their members on the benefits that are being provided so they can make the right decision and understand the value?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think one of the biggest things I think about is obviously the weeks leading up to open enrollment and during open enrollment are critical 'cause that's when people are making those decisions. And we tend to emphasize really that that short period of time to give them all of the information, get them to make those decisions, and then we sort of don't come back to that. And so I think one of the biggest recommendations I would make is not just to think about what you're communicating and how you're communicating during open enrollment, but also the opportunity year round to engage people with those programs so that when they come to make that decision again the next year, they've got some real tangible experiences and ex examples of how those programs have delivered value. And that sort of goes back to the personalization and, and the relevance of those programs. You know, the job doesn't end with just getting them enrolled in those programs during open enrollment, but also how do you then come back to and surface those programs at moments that matter to those people once they need 'em? And so, you know, we talk a lot about at benefit focus care navigation being a great example of an opportunity to do that, right? If you've got a care navigation solution, how do you then make sure that people know that it exists when they need it so that they can get the right care? Because that's ultimately what's gonna drive better outcomes and lower costs . And so I think while open enrollment and communicating around open enrollment and, you know, we see employers starting to do things like sharing how much they're investing in your healthcare as you're going through the open enrollment experience. All those things are very important and helpful, but I think we need to focus more on what happens after open enrollment so people are actually getting the value out of those programs year round .
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. We just released some data that shows , I think it's about two thirds of people spend less than 30 minutes actually choosing their benefits during open enrollment. So as you said, you've got a limited window during open enrollment to do that education. If you can reach those people beyond that, that can have a tremendous amount of value. Maybe building on the personalization point, you hit on both in that answer and then in that future vision, you know, there's so many different perspectives now in today's workforce. How do you as a marketer think about reaching all the different audiences that you have to connect with? And what advice would you have advice to our employers and listeners that are thinking about doing the same?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Nate , I I've actually been thinking a lot lately about the parallels between being a marketer and being an HR leader because there are many, but one of them is that idea of your audience is diverse and you have to be thoughtful about how do you engage across that diversity. And so what's exciting when I think about it from a marketer's lens is, you know, there's access to data and technology now that allows us to do things that we once upon a time couldn't do. So we can actually segment our audiences, we can be more targeted and therefore more personalized as we think about how we message to them . And so I think that's something that , um, should be applied. When you're thinking about your communication strategy around benefits. What are the different things that might work for one population that might not work for another? Right. We work with a variety of clients, some of who have employees who are sitting in front of a computer all day. And so if you're sending emails and you know, digital benefit guides that will work for them if your population is out and, you know, on the manufacturing floor or in retail and helping clients, you know, that might not necessarily work for them. And so we work really closely to try and understand what are those differences across the population, what have you seen work before? And I think there's also some exciting opportunity to be more creative. You said at the start, you know, we, we tend to sort of go back to the same deliverables, you know, that 30 page benefit guide and the world has evolved and people are consuming information differently and we've got a lot more flexibility in terms how, how we can do that. So I also encourage employers to just experiment a little with different channels that maybe they haven't in the past to see if some of those ways of communicating are actually more effective than, than maybe the ways of the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's such a great point that you had that the workforce, the actual employer environment's gonna vary a lot. You know, do you have a manufacturing base ? You have a a software development base , and then how you communicate is gonna vary within an employer and then also across those individual employees there. And one of the tools you mentioned, and you just referenced technology a little bit, you know, I'd love to get your thoughts on how technology is evolving and how that technology evolution can support a lot of the work. You're talking about the personalization, the connection, as an example. You can't turn a corner right now and not hear somebody talking about generative AI in the world and how it's gonna change all the work that we're doing. And so we'd love to get your thoughts on just how is that evolution, whether it's generative AI or other technological advancements benefiting what we're doing and how do you balance that with just improving what we're doing this year and next year and sort of near term?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's, there's a couple things I think about. One is, you know, yeah, the , the AI topic is, is a fascinating one. You know, I don't think you can go a day without hearing generative AI at least 17 times. And it's, it's interesting 'cause a lot of times when you poke at that, you know, everybody's talking about it, but a lot of people don't even know what that means. I know I've spent a ton of time with our technology team trying to understand for myself like, what does that mean and, and how might we apply it to what it is that we do? Because I think sometimes we have a tendency to, we get really excited about shiny new things. We all wanna be using the latest and greatest buzzwords and, and, and being relevant. But I always come back to, at the end of the day, how is this gonna solve a problem or how is this gonna deliver value? I , I heard a quote the other day. Clients are experts in pain and vendors are experts in products, right? And so for us, the onus is really on how do we translate what that technology can enable , um, for our employer clients as well as for their people. I think some of the examples that I've seen that I get really excited about as it relates to ai , um, you know, our team is working on how we can better enable our service organization to support members going through open enrollment. If you, if you listen to some of the calls where people are, are coming to our service center and they're looking for help making what is in many ways the most important decision they'll make all year around their coverage. Um, and you're seeing what's happening on the backend with our service center, they're having to click through a lot of different screens and a lot of different information sources to get the information that they need to better support the member. And obviously that can be very distracting from actually paying attention to what it is that that member is asking or, or their personal situation or how they're thinking about different decisions. And so we're really thinking about ways that we can leverage AI to make that experience for our people more seamless so that they can focus on the person who's on the other end of the line. That's one of the things that I think is very exciting is just the access to data is key, but also the ability to surface that data in a way that's meaningful and relevant for either the member directly or for the person who's on the other end of the phone supporting that member.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it resonates. Just making it easier for our employees or any employees to interact is gonna improve that experience. Clearly that's a benefit of technology. Are are there other trends maybe outside of technology that you're seeing , um, in the marketing world that you think benefits managers can be thinking about and using in their communications? Yeah,
Speaker 3:Actually, one of the things I've been thinking about a lot , uh, Nate, you know, I have a 13 year old daughter, so we spend a lot of time on TikTok in my house and I've been reading a lot about sort of the impact of TikTok or YouTube shorts, and I see it with my own kids, right? It's the attention span is getting shorter and shorter and shorter, right? People are just used to swiping up, swiping up, swiping up, and if you can't catch my attention and make this interesting to me in 0.05 seconds, then I'm swiping, right? And so I think a lot about how that applies to the benefits world, right? Again, not to, not to belabor the point on the benefits guide, you know, and I don't, I don't think that's actually a, a generational thing. Like I think about my mom, right? And she's not gonna read through a 30 page benefit guide. She wants to send it to me to read through and then give her, just tell me what I need to do. Like you read it and you tell me I don't have time, I don't understand these terms, so can you just like, make it easier for me to understand and tell me at the end of the day what the right choice is ? And so I've been thinking a lot about how do we make the information more consumable, more digestible, more bite-sized and more ongoing than a one and done kind of thing. So again, I think we send this benefit guide out once we expect that everybody's gonna get it, can we break that information down and be in front of people more often, but in shorter sprints so that you can build that, that knowledge over time. And so I've been thinking a lot about the TikTok trend and how we might apply that same sort of thinking to benefits , given that attention span are just getting shorter and shorter . And for employers , you've got the added challenge that what they used to be able to communicate live and in person , they now have to completely rely on virtual chat channels, right? People are not in the office, they can't do a big benefits meeting in the, in the auditorium of the office, right? They're just relying on emails of which people already get a lot. And so how do we leverage some of these emerging channels? And again, just experiment a little and see what works.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm waiting for you now, Anna, to launch the TikTok for benefits platform coming out soon, I think. Did we hear it hear first?
Speaker 3:Yeah , I, listen, I'm thinking about it. I think we're onto something. Uh , if I can get my daughter to swipe, you know, not to swipe, I guess on, on my benefits TikTok channel, I I will have arrived <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Well, I'm basically a dinosaur when it comes to social media, so , uh, so you have to keep me up to speed. Anna, this has been a wonderful conversation and I'd like to leave our listeners with one last question and perhaps some pointers they can take away when it comes to their experiences, this open enrollment season . What's the one piece of advice that you would give to benefits teams about resonating and bringing to life the content on benefits with today's employees and plan members ?
Speaker 3:It's a great question. And again, I come back to the parallels. It's the same advice I would give , um, any marketer in either B two B or B two C , right? It's, it's know your customer, know your audience. Again, I think you now have the technology that makes that easier, but don't even let technology be the only way, right? Like, talk to your employees, understand what it is that they need, what their challenges are, how they consume information, and be willing to experiment a little bit based on what you learned . So know, know your people and and evolve accordingly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for all the insight today, Anna , uh, appreciate your time and thank you also to our listeners. We hope that these insights are valuable for you and your workforce as you go through open enrollment this year. Thanks again for joining us today and stay well.
Speaker 1:This information is provided by Voya for your education only. Neither Voya nor representatives offer tax or legal advice any opinions expressed within, do not necessarily reflect those of the Voya family of companies or its representatives and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Please consult your tax or legal advisor before making a tax related investment or insurance decision.