Benefit Communications Inc.

Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and can significantly impact employee morale, loyalty, and job satisfaction. More importantly, communicating benefits effectively can help employers retain staff, increase productivity, and boost overall employee engagement. However, in today’s digital world, amidst an onslaught of emails and social media chatter, organizations find it challenging to constructively connect with employees. And existing HR systems typically don’t offer a friendly user experience for educating employees on their benefits. As a modern-day alternative to the legacy HR system’s transactional experience, Nashville-based Benefit Communications Inc. (BCI) offers HR system enhancements for effective benefits communication, education, and engagement.

In addition to benefits communication, BCI customizes cost-effective solutions in the areas of benefit cost-containment, enrollment, data management, and benefit advisor staffing, without replacing clients’ existing HR systems. Driving benefit cost-containment and education, engaging employees in the benefits selection process, and enhancing employee satisfaction are crucial for every organization. “Our goal is to optimize clients’ benefits and technology investment by developing flexible solutions for the varying needs across industries,” states Chris Morris, senior vice president and partner at BCI. Communication needs differ not only between existing employees and new hires but also for various employee demographics within an organization and by industry type. BCI’s solutions comprehensively solve these challenges by integrating quickly and seamlessly with an organization’s HR system, offering a wide range of functionalities.

BCI’s communication solutions consist of mobile-responsive technology, outbound messaging, decision support tools, and more. In addition, the company fulfills the needs of certain industries and demographics with both high-tech and high-touch solutions.

To drive communication initiatives that evolve year to year, BCI leverages interactive tools such as plan recommendations, engagement pop-ups, PDFs, videos and audio coaches to address various learning styles. BCI offers over 50 different HR-related services within its core competencies. In addition to print and digital communications, videos, and decision tools, BCI provides both onsite and call center benefit advisor assistance to clients for annual and newly eligible enrollment support.

“Our approach is to analyze the client’s technology investment and toolsets, evaluate their key initiatives, and then recommend a strategic plan,” says Morris. The efficiency of this approach can be illustrated by how BCI helped a healthcare client increase their consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) participation. By applying a prescriptive approach to solve for low participation, BCI implemented an active engagement communication strategy for the healthcare firm’s employees. During the pre-enrollment process, BCI integrated its mobile-enabled site and text messaging capabilities with the client’s HR system and deployed a series of videos to boost awareness about the CDHP and new supplemental benefit program. Participants were required to use BCI’s medical plan decision tool during the enrollment process. Consequently, the CDHP participation rose from 14 to 41 percent, exceeding the client’s goals based on an active engagement communication strategy coupled with a medical plan decision tool.

BCI’s solutions are flexible and customizable, integrating seamlessly with an organization’s existing HR system, which sets BCI apart from its competitors. There are three versions of BCI’s ElectBenefits platform: ElectConnect^TM—a single sign-on enrollment solution for supplemental benefits, ElectEnroll^TM—an enrollment dashboard for all benefits including core and supplemental, and ElectAdmin^TM—an enrollment and benefits administration solution, all of which comprehensively address diverse client HR system limitations and needs. “To further enhance the flexibility of our solutions, we are investing in cloud services and focusing on API integrations with HR systems and vendor partners,” concludes Morris.