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8 Tips for Delivering Benefits Bad NewsHow to talk to employees about benefits changes you know they won’t like

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8 Tips for Delivering Benefits Bad News

Introduction 1

Tip 1: Consider the Audience 2

Tip 2: Make a Follow-Up Plan 3

Tip 3: Don’t Forget About Your Team 6

Tip 4: Avoid Surprises 7

Tip 5: Give It to Them Straight 8

Tip 6: Don’t Hedge

Tip 7: Respond to Questions

Tip 8: Don’t Show Support, Be Supportive

About the Author

Learn More

About ALEX®

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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O ne of the biggest occupational hazards for

someone on the benefits sides of HR is having

to be the bearer of bad news. Benefits are expensive.

Employers need to profit. Something has to give.

Introduction

More often than not, that something is benefits. Despite

your best efforts to tweak plan designs, at the end of the

day, you’re the one who has to tell your coworkers that

their copays are increasing, their deductibles are getting

higher, or that their overall benefits package is shrinking.

Delivering a not-so-great benefits message is a delicate

art, but it’s something you have to become comfortable

with if you plan on thriving in this line of work.

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T here are all kinds of benefits bad news, and all

kinds of folks to whom you have to tell it. Before you

begin crafting your communication plan, you need to

understand how the bad news will affect your people.

Who will feel the impact most? Is this something that

will affect everybody companywide, like when there’s

a senior management directive to cut HR costs? Or is it

something that touches a much smaller group, like when

there’s a new piece of legislation that changes the way

a transit flexible spending account works?

And what if the “bad news” is actually something

good for most people? A new employer contribution

to a highly promoted HSA plan that Medicare Part A

enrollees can’t take advantage of, for instance.

You may have an obligation to announce bad news to

everybody, but if you want to be truly helpful, you’ll have

to know who’s really affected the most so you can craft

a follow-up plan.

Tip 1: Consider the Audience

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T oo many benefits departments go radio silent

after bad news is announced. That’s a mistake.

If you want to be smart about communicating negative

changes to benefits, you’ll take the time to plan general

follow-up communications for the entire audience as

well as individual follow-ups for the employees who’ll

be affected most.

Tip 2: Make a Follow-Up Plan

180 Days Prior to OE

This is a high-level view from 50,000 feet.

You’ll provide basic communication (email

works well here) on the expected benefit

design changes, anticipated additions or

subtractions to the plans, as well as what’s

working well, what’s not. This is a good

opportunity to ask for employee input on

what they like and dislike about the plan

design, new/old benefits, and wish list stuff.

Sample Communication Plan

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120 Days Prior to OE

Now you’re starting the descent. The view is from

30,000 feet. You now have a much better view

of where things are financially, and should be

able to give some ballpark language around what

employees can expect.

“We’ve gotten some preliminary analysis done our

2016 OE, and you should expect some increases

to premiums in the 8-12% range. We are looking at

a number of things including: (your list of things),

and our hope is we can bring this amount down

while maintaining a solid benefits package you’ve

come to expect.”

90 Days Prior to OE

You’re now at 20,000 feet, in full descent. You

should be using more direct language when

describing cost and plan design changes. Also,

you’ll need to provide more direction to those

who will be affected the most. This helps calm

employee stress, and gets you out in front of

possible turnover issues.

60 Days Prior to OE

You’re at 10,000 feet. You’ve now got the official

dates and times for open enrollment on the books.

You should have a pretty solid understanding

of benefit designs and costs. This is the time to

begin selling the reasons of why changes need

to be made.

Tip 2: Make a Follow-Up Plan (continued)

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30 Days Prior to OE

You’re at 5,000 feet, and the landing gear is

out. Your communications now take on a more

administrative tone because all the bad/good

news has been delivered many times. Focus on

how employees can sign up for and get the most

use out of their new benefits. Any new benefits

should be highlighted.

Open Enrollment Day

There is nothing new here, and that’s a great thing!

No one is surprised, or shocked, the task of open

enrollment should not be emotional because

you’ve already taken care of that.

Tip 2: Make a Follow-Up Plan (continued)

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Tip 3: Don’t Forget About Your Team

W ay too many organizations spend all their time

and resources getting a communication right only

to see their efforts fall flat because they haven’t taken

the time to make sure the people actually delivering

the message were capable and receptive to actually

delivering it in the way it was designed.

Not that your team aren’t professionals. They are. But

they’re also employees who’ll be affected by the bad

news too. If you don’t let them grieve the loss of whatever

it is they’ll be losing, you risk having their unexpressed

frustrations and resentments souring the message they’ve

worked so hard to prepare.

Give your team time to be upset, and also let them know

that they don’t have to like the changes that have to take

place. Let your team know that they can be honest about

their personal feelings if the topic comes up in the course

of explaining the changes. If possible, model this tone for

them in the way you discuss the changes with them.

Transparency, when controlled, is healthy for employees

to see and understand. Besides, you don’t want to put

anybody in a position where they’d have to be untruthful.

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Tip 4: Avoid Surprises

T he worst communications you will ever deliver

are the ones that surprise people. I coach HR

professionals constantly on the fact that one of our

jobs as HR pros is to make sure our employees are

never surprised!

Simply put: Negative surprises kill culture.

Just as a good manager should never deliver negative

surprises during a performance review, a good benefits

professional should never deliver negative surprises

during open enrollment.

Great performance feedback happens in real time and

on a continuous basis. Great benefits communications

are similar. If you know you will have deep, or unpopular,

cuts to your benefits, you need to start communicating

those possibilities right away.

Don’t wait to deliver bad news. Rip the Band-Aid off

right away with a simple, forthcoming message that

addresses business realities calmly, and uses language

you’d use yourself if talking to your colleagues face to face.

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Tip 5: Give It to Them Straight

W hen you have bad news, and assuming you were

setting this communication up all along and not

hiding it, giving it to your employees straight always

works the best.

“Hey gang, we’ve been communicating this for the

last 90 days, and we all know we have some big cuts.

Here’s what they look like...” Then just tell them what

you’ve got. They’ve prepared themselves mentally, and

they’re ready to hear it. You don’t need to pussyfoot

around the subject.

My Momma never messed around with adding sugar

to my cough syrup—it just wasted time, caused lots of

aggravation, and tasted horrible in the end besides.

Trying to hide something horrible with lame marketing

tricks will lose you more influence and credibility within

your organization than any other single thing you can do.

The Bad News Sandwich

Avoid the temptation to give employees a bad news sandwich.

Everyone hates this kind of communication. You hate delivering

it, and your employees hate receiving it.

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Tip 6: Don’t Hedge

Y ou have some bad news to deliver, and that sucks.

Don’t make things worse by trying to hedge.

Saying something like “Well, the costs are going up by

12 percent, but if we do better financially in the second

quarter, we can talk leadership into giving some of that

back,” can blow up in your face.

When you give bad news, you have to be clear, concise,

and unequivocal. “This is what it is.” Period.

Mentioning positive changes that might occur is

dangerous because employees will only hear “there will

be positive change,” and not, “if financials improve by

37% percent in the second quarter, we may be able to

make some positive changes.”

Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

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Tip 7: Respond to Questions

O nce the cat is out of the bag, your employees will

most definitely have questions. Lots of them. Your

job is to be honest, frank, and helpful. Depending on the

setting of those questions, however, the task might be

easier said than done.

Consider, for instance, questions that come up during

a group meeting. Employee questions that come up in

this setting are great…until they’re not. Some employees

will have honest questions about the design and how

that impacts their choices, but some will want you to be

Dr. Phil right then and there and solve their particular

problem in front of the rest of your employees. You are

not Dr. Phil. Don’t allow yourself to become Dr. Phil.

When an employee asks a question that is inappropriate

for a group benefits communication forum, you need

to shut it down immediately, and let them know you will

take it off line. Give them a specific time and place this

will happen, and make it timely. Be prepared for this

answer before you walk into the conference room to

deliver the communication. “Thanks for the question, Bill.

I will address that with you privately in 25 minutes in my

office. Next question.”

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Tip 8: Don’t Show Support, Be Supportive

Y ou don’t show support by talking about how

supportive you are. You show support when

you actually take action and do something. After

you deliver bad news about a negative benefit

change, your employees will need you to be

supportive.

These folks will feel the effects of the changes

more than others, and could be facing real

challenges in their personal lives. They don’t need

to hear, “everything will be OK.” They need you to

actually show them how it will be OK.

This is when benefits pros truly earn their keep—

by helping the employee come up with options.

Those options, while not perfect, help ease the

anxiety the employee might be feeling.

© 2017 The Jellyvision Lab, Inc. All rights reserved.

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About the Author

Tim Sackett, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, is the president

of HRU Technical Resources, a leading IT

and engineering staffing firm headquartered

in Lansing, Michigan. Tim has 20 years of

combined executive HR and talent acquisition

experience working for Fortune 500 companies

in health care, retail, dining, and technology.

A highly sought after national speaker on

leadership, talent acquisition, and HR execution,

he also is a prolific writer in the HR and talent

space, writing for Fistful of Talent and his own

blog, The Tim Sackett Project. In 2014 he was

named one of the Top 10 Human Resource

Influencers on Twitter, which gives him great

street cred with his teenage sons.

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Conclusion

We hope the tips presented in this eBook have been helpful, and we encourage you to learn even more about communication trends, tips, and best practices by checking out our ALEX Blog & Smart Stuff blog, or perusing some of our useful—and free!— eBooks.

The Ultimate HR Guide to Promoting Benefits Programs, Tools, and Resources

The Ultimate Open Enrollment Communication Playbook

6 Tips for Communicating Benefits to Millennials

5 Ways to Engage Your Remote Employees Like Never Before

5 Tips for Introducing an HDHP to Your Employees

The Ultimate New Hire Pre-Boarding Timeline

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About ALEX ALEX—the best SaaS employee communication platform in the universe—saves HR leaders time and money by guiding employees through difficult health insurance, retirement savings, leave of absence, and wellness decisions. More than 1,000 companies, including 106 of the Fortune 500, with more than 17 million employees in total, trust ALEX to transform confusing jargon, legalese, and gobbledygook into useful information and helpful advice. To learn more, please visit meetalex.com.

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