April 1 marks National Employee Benefits Day. In honor and celebration of this year’s theme dedicated to improving employee health and well-being, I encourage professionals to speak out loudly and clearly on benefits. Although enrollment season isn’t until autumn, now is the time to speak out:
- Eighty percent of employees say a well-communicated benefits package would keep them in their jobs. Forbes magazine lists September and October—prime-time for enrollment season—as one of the best times of year for job hoppers to begin searching for new opportunities. Employers that wait too late could lose golden communication time, as well as top talent come fall.
- The Obama administration is seeking public comments on changes to the 2018 Cadillac tax under the Affordable Care Act. Employers who make their voices heard by the May 15 comment deadline can affect meaningful change for the one of the reform law’s most unwieldy provisions in terms of health benefit plan design.
The government already has taken comments on changes to ACA’s Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC); we submitted our perspective to the Department of Labor earlier this year, and changes could go into effect as early as September. You can do the same for the Cadillac tax, but first you need to have a firm POV and a firm plan.
Benefits managers looking to incorporate successful strategies into this year’s plans and communication strategies can join us tomorrow for the fifth session in our 2015 Benefits Communication Master Class.
The session, “Beyond a two-week window: 10 ways to make annual enrollment a success in an era of health care reform,” will give you a 10-point checklist for an excellent enrollment within the new, more complex era of ACA regulations.
This session is approved for 1 (HR General) recertification credit hour toward PHR, SPHR and GPHR recertification through the HR Certification Institute. Learn more at www.hrci.org.
