Most employers have finally realized that their employees need a benefits website. They need a single place online (outside the firewall) to house all their benefits information. But in today’s world, that just isn’t enough. To stay a step ahead of the competition, meet employee expectations, and get the most from your benefits—and website—investment, you need a website that does more than just house benefits.
When your employee joined the company you talked about ‘all the great things that come with being employed there’. Are you still telling / reminding them? A great benefits website includes information about the full range of benefits offered; adoption assistance, gym club discounts, financial wellness and voluntary benefits. Paychecks pay to get the work done. Culture and added benefits keep your employees.
A benefits website should be an extension of the entire employee experience. It should look and sound like your company and be an extension of its brand. Your company has probably spent years and millions of dollars building a recognizable, unique brand. Leverage the trust in that brand—and its credibility—by creating a fully branded experience for employees on your benefits website. A word to the wise: Slapping on the company logo and changing a few colors does not create a brand experience! It’s a whole lot more. The tone and style of the copy, the approach to site navigation, the images selected, the page titles—everything on the site should reflect your company’s brand.
A website doesn’t do anyone any good if people can’t get to it when they need to. The information needs to be available to employees and their spouses when they want it, wherever they happen to be. For example, your employee’s child sprained their ankle at a Saturday soccer tournament. That employee will not have a company laptop with passwords ready to access. They will have their phone. Your benefits site should be mobile compatible and allow the employee to find their plan and then click to call a doctor.
Think of navigation as the primary way employees will search the site. Offer multiple way to find information; large graphic icon, drop downs, and tabs. Scroll new information in banners across the home page. Take the time to evaluate. Track clicks, and move a frequently searched topic like Time Off to the home page. The easier it is for employees to find the information they are looking for the better.
Why do you keep going back to your favorite websites? Because their is new information. Information on your site needs to be updated often. Change a rotating banner, promote a specific benefit one month and switch to another the next. Utilize new images. If any information on the site is out of date, employees will assume all the information on the site is out of date. One of the reasons the web is such a great medium is because websites can be continuously refined, tweaked, and improved.
Don’t have a kickoff campaign to show off all your hard work, and then never mention it again. Promote the benefits site. Make your benefits site the home screen of all company computers. If an employee calls with a question, guide them to the answer on the benefits website. Put up a poster with large graphic images of the benefits site home screen. Be creative. Deploy the next company picnic email with hyperlinks back to event information found on the benefits site. Put open enrollment information on the benefits site. Use every opportunity to dive employees back to the benefits site.
Use these as a starting point for evaluating—and improving—your company’s website. If it comes up short, Joshua Communications can help. We believe every company and every employee deserves a great benefits website.
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