Tag: open enrollment

August 28, 2023

Rising health care costs. Persistent high inflation. A combination of hybrid, office and remote workers. Higher employee expectations. For those reasons and more, this year’s open enrollment is looking a little different from years past. “Enrollment is such a certainty […]

October 24, 2022

It is that time of year again—time to plan for and implement annual open enrollment processes. At least it is that time for the typical group health plans that operate on a calendar-year basis. For most plans, this means it […]

September 23, 2022

The process of signing up for benefits options during open enrollment has largely been automated, with online enrollment platforms replacing paper forms. Now, more employers are seeking to improve the online enrollment experience by adding decision-support tools and guides to […]

September 17, 2021

This year’s open enrollment season just may be one of the most essential—and confusing—in recent history. The myriad legislative changes that were introduced for flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) in 2020 due to COVID-19 were designed […]

September 7, 2021

The IRS announced that employer-sponsored health coverage will satisfy the Affordable Care Act (ACA) affordability requirement next year if the lowest-cost, self-only coverage option an employer offers does not exceed 9.61 percent of an employee’s income. The threshold in 2021 […]

June 1, 2021

Robotic process automation (RPA) is an emerging technology for streamlining HR activities, including benefits administration, which traditionally have required manual processing by HR departments. A Range of Solutions RPA allows for rules-based, transactional processes to handle, without human intervention, tasks […]

July 30, 2020

Employee benefits are complicated. Not only is the subject matter complex, but most employees think about their benefits only once a year, during open enrollment. With a pandemic raging, employers are facing even bigger challenges related to communicating benefits information. […]

November 2, 2018

Elkay Manufacturing Co. is on the cusp of something new as benefits open enrollment season rolls around. After successfully meeting the needs of employees and the budget of the employer for years, its health care offerings just weren’t popular anymore. […]

October 23, 2017

Open enrollment: The same stress as the rest of the year, multiplied by a factor of 10. The strategy planning, the tech buying and (we hope) the first talks with employees have long passed. Now it’s just about surviving one […]

September 8, 2017

The consensus view among employee benefit advisors is that active open enrollment is the superior way to prod employees to make appropriate decisions about the benefits that will best suit their own—and their families’—needs. Active enrollment, however, requires that HR […]

October 12, 2016

As open enrollment approaches and benefits choices become a focus at workplaces across the country, a survey has found that retirement and core health care benefits are important to Millennials, as are flexible work arrangements. Millennials, who are now the […]

September 30, 2016

Nearly 90 percent of employers view attracting talent and improving engagement as the top objectives they want to achieve by offering employee benefits. However, many (70 percent) say they are struggling to help employees understand and value their benefits package. […]

September 19, 2016

As an HR department of one, “open enrollment is always an adventure and some years more so than others,” said Cathy Clement, SHRM-CP. Clement is the HR manager at Ewing-Foley Inc. (EFI) in Cupertino, Calif. The firm, with 97 employees, […]