Precept Employee Benefits Blog

Validation is oh-so-sweet. About a year ago, I wrote about why I don’t think companies should use social media in employee benefit communications. Well, according to a new report by the National Business Group on Health – employees don’t want their employers to send them benefit communications via social media, either. Nearly 80% of surveyed workers said they don’t want to receive information about their employer’s health benefits, or tips on exercising, eating healthy, or saving money, via Twitter or text messaging (75% said they don’t want this information via Facebook, either).

Of course, you have to look at the source, too: the majority of workers who said they don’t want any of this information via social media tools are older and lower-income workers; those who wouldn’t mind this information coming to them via social media are younger and higher-income workers. So as the older workers retire and the younger, more social media-savvy workers flood the workplace, these numbers can be expected to change.

So what should employers do? For now, the tried-and-true method of sending information via email and snail mail is still the best route, as nearly all surveyed workers said they prefer those means of receiving the information. But employers can’t ignore the social media aspect completely; there will come a day, in the not-so-distant future, where more and more workers will be expecting health benefit information to come to them the same way they receive all the rest of the information they receive – through social media tools (of course, with the way social media tools are evolving and developing, the preferred source for information in that not-so-distant future probably doesn’t even exist yet).

I want to know: have you tried using social media tools in your employee benefits communication?

If so, what’s been your experience?

It’s a celebration of summer in the latest edition of the Carnival of HR, brought to you by Inflexion Point! Can’t get away from your desk to enjoy the sunshine? Then wander on over, and it will be just like sipping an ice-cold lemonade by the pool.

It’s Carnival of HR time, and this round is being hosted by Erik Samdahl at i4cp.com. This Carnival is highlighting the HR freaks – that is, all of those noble HR professionals who care enough to share their knowledge and experience with the world. So go on, check it out!

The interwebs are abuzz with the recent statistics that the percentage of employees voluntarily resigning is now greater than the percentage of employees being laid off. While this is probably a good sign that the economy is indeed starting to improve, as it shows workers are more confident to move to new positions, it should also serve as a warning to employers: are you doing all you can to make sure your super stars aren’t joining the exodus?

The article 6 Ways to Keep Your Employees from Jumping Ship offers some advice to employers who want to retain their best employees. All of this talk about employees leaving and how employers can keep their best talent got me thinking, as I have been diligently preparing my company’s employer questionnaires for a number of top workplace/best place to work programs, what are some of the best practices that great employers have implemented to keep their employees motivated and satisfied? I’m not talking about just during the bad times; I’m also talking about the good times, too. It’s easier to keep employees in a bad economy, much more difficult to keep them in a good one.

Compensation is usually the first thing to come to mind, though very few people leave a job simply for more money. I’ve read articles and blog posts galore that exclaim this very notion. Like the saying goes, money doesn’t buy happiness. So what does buy happiness? Being treated like a person, and not a worker bee, is a good place to start. For example, my company is very good at communication. We have town hall meetings every month, and management tells us what’s up with the company and financials at every meeting. When the economy first started to implode in 2008, they were very forthcoming about what each and every one of us needed to do to achieve management’s goal of not laying off one single employee (result: no layoffs!). We employees like to know that what we do affects the whole, that we have a role to play in how the company succeeds (or doesn’t), and that management acknowledges the role we play and doesn’t take our hard work for granted.

Sure, there are many other great things my company does (we have been named a Top Workplace and a Best Place to Work, after all), but, dear readers, I want to know what, as employers, you do to keep your employees, and employees, what makes you stay.