Are communication crunches taking up too much of your team’s valuable time? Keeping employees updated on their benefits, whether it’s gathering the necessary documentation or pushing out open enrollment dates, is important work. But it’s just the beginning of the mountains of HR/employee correspondence going out every work day. If you’re looking for ways to streamline your HR department’s employee correspondence, these benefit platform features are just the ticket.
1. Group Emailing
Whether you’re alerting employees that their dependent’s 26th birthday is approaching and they’ll need to move to a new health care plan, or reaching out to every employee who hasn’t yet taken action on open enrollment, using group emailing to trigger message mailings for specific segments of your workforce is a huge timesaver. With the right benefits platform, this task should be as simple as creating the email, using tags to segment your recipients, and setting up the email schedule and frequency.
For example, suppose you want to send out a regular welcome email to new hires. With a platform offering group emailing service, you can write an email one time and schedule it to hit emails once per week to anyone tagged as a New Hire in your HR system.
2. Communication Files
Depending on how your company fields HR-related calls and emails, multiple people might be speaking with a single employee as they work through an issue. If your company utilizes a call center, there’s potential for third-party reps to be in the mix, as well. How do you keep track of all these conversations, making sure your employee isn’t getting conflicting advice and differing answers?
Communication files provide the answer — provided everyone can access them. An HR platform should include the ability to create an entry or a support ticket for every employee request, along with the ability to update the file as the employee’s case continues to unfold. Information in this file might include uploaded documents, follow-up requests, and actions taken by the call center or HR department staffers.
3. Forms Library
How many of the emails your HR team sends out are the same requests for information, updates on eligibility, and reminders about upcoming events like open enrollment or biometric screenings? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time an email goes out — templates cut down on the need to do anything more than personalize a line or two, or add specific data to the request field.
An HR platform which includes email templates for these repetitive situations, coupled with the ability to schedule and tag emails, dramatically cuts down on the time spent writing and sending emails. Plus, using prewritten templates reduces the possibility of error or typos which could give your employee the wrong information.
Does your HR platform offer these communication tools? You could be missing out on some simple, effective ways to enhance your communications while streamlining your HR operation. Click here to learn more about WBD’s benefits administration platform, and view the valuable features of the HR Access platform. With HR Access, you’re able to maintain employee records, reporting, communications, carrier connections, and more — all in one place.