How to Evaluate the Success of Your Open Enrollment Process

Open Enrollment comes once a year, and for many HR teams and employees alike, it’s a whirlwind of deadlines, decisions, and paperwork. The process can quickly become chaotic between deciding on and communicating plan changes, answering complex questions, and ensuring employees have all the information necessary to make informed decisions. But once the dust settles, the real work begins: understanding how well your Open Enrollment process worked. Were employees engaged in the process? Did employees understand their options? What percentage of your employees completed the process? Were there fewer errors or more confusion? Taking the time to assess what went smoothly, what fell short, and what needs to be improved isn’t just helpful — it’s essential to making next year’s Open Enrollment less stressful and more effective.

Here’s how to systematically evaluate your Open Enrollment process and set your team up for long-term success.

Measure Plan Participation 

The first and most straightforward metric to evaluate is participation rates. Compare last year’s participation to this year to identify migration trends. Specifically look at:

• Enrollment Completions: Percentage of employees who completed open enrollment. How many employees are actively enrolled in benefits this year versus previous years?
• Enrollments by Plan: Percentage or # of employees who enrolled in certain plans. Did that % or # increase or decrease for certain plans?
• Employee Contributions: Average contribution to those enrolled. Did it increase or decrease?
• Plan Migrations: # of employees that moved from one plan to another plan. Which plan saw the most influx of enrollees and which saw the least?

If you note an uptick or a downtick, identify what changed or what you did differently that could have resulted in that year-over-year change. 

Examine Cost and Budget

It’s also important to evaluate if your benefits mix and cost-sharing strategies are hitting the right balance between value and sustainability. Be sure to examine

• Enrollment Distribution: How employees have distributed themselves among the various health plan options available. Identify if there is a noticeable shift towards lower-cost plans, which could signal successful cost-containment efforts. 
• Comparison of Projected and Actual Employer Contributions: Predicted employer contributions to health benefits against the real figures. Discrepancies can indicate inaccuracies in forecasting, unforeseen enrollment patterns, or unexpected increases in healthcare costs.
• Identify Shifts in High-Cost Plan Utilization: Increase or decrease in the number of employees enrolled in such plans. A sudden spike may point to underlying health concerns within the workforce or a flaw in the structure of the other plans. Conversely, a reduction could indicate improved health management or the successful promotion of more affordable options.

Through the detailed analysis of this data, a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits mix and cost-sharing methodologies can be performed. It should aim to ascertain if the equilibrium between value and financial sustainability is optimized. The insights gained from the analysis will empower decision-makers to make informed adjustments to their benefits strategy, thereby enhancing employee satisfaction while also ensuring long-term fiscal health.

 

Assess Employee Engagement

Look at employee engagement levels. Low engagement could suggest unclear communication or a lack of perceived value in your offerings. On the flip side, high engagement—especially in new programs—might signal that your messaging hit the mark or that employees are more tuned in to their benefit options this year than in previous years.

• Event attendance: What percentage of employees attended key Open Enrollment Information sessions and group presentations as compared to last year?

• Email opens and reads: How many employees opened and read emails related to Open Enrollment? Were there higher open and click-through rates for certain emails? If so, that would suggest employees are more actively engaged with the content of that email as opposed to other emails.

Review Communication Strategy

A key element of any successful Open Enrollment is clear, consistent, and engaging communication. According to the 2024 Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, nearly a third of workers spend less than 30 minutes selecting a health plan. That makes your communication strategy even more important.

Review the methods you used to communicate with employees during the enrollment period 

• Channels: Did you use a mix of emails, webinars, and one-on-one support? Which channels saw the most traction? Employees engage in different ways, so be sure your communications reach them in multiple formats. 
• Clarity: Were your instructions easy to follow? Did employees understand the deadlines and requirements? Check for feedback from employees on what could have been clearer.
• Frequency: Did you communicate often enough to remind employees about deadlines? Were there enough touchpoints to keep Open Enrollment top of mind?

Be sure to ask employees for feedback via survey when the period is concluded. Ask employees how well they understood their options, whether the communication was timely and helpful, and what they wish they’d known earlier. Pay attention to repeated questions—if the same confusion comes up again and again, that’s a signal your materials or timing need work.

The 2024 Open Enrollment Communications Report by Navia Benefit Solutions states that effective communication strategies can lead to an increase in benefit participation. 

Analyze Enrollment Experience

Was the employee enrollment experience on your benefit administration platform smooth and user-friendly, or did it crash under pressure? Technical issues can derail even the best-prepared Open Enrollment, leading to employee frustration and administrative headaches. 

If part of your Open Enrollment strategy involves transitioning employees from one benefits platform to another or one medical plan to another, it’s critically important to understand how well that migration and employee experience went. Here are some factors to look at:

• Data accuracy: Was employee information correct in the system and/or migrated to a new system without errors? A smooth migration process should involve minimal errors.
• Issues and tickets: How many user complaints, help desk tickets, or calls to tech support were made during Open Enrollment? Were there specific issues that arose more often than not? Were the issues related to system or human error?
• Vendor support and compatibility: If employees struggled with password resets, navigation, or submission errors, did your vendor partner handle those issues on time? A glitchy system can leave employees frustrated with the Open Enrollment process as a whole.

Review HR and Administrative Burdens

When evaluating the success of your Open Enrollment, it’s also important to consider the administrative burdens and challenges your team faced throughout the process. If you and your team put in overtime hours processing forms, fixing errors, or answering the same question a hundred times, your process likely isn’t as efficient as it could be. Look at:

• Manual corrections: Issues that cannot be fixed automatically can take up a LOT of time. Identify where those errors lie and see what can be done to mitigate those errors in the future.
• Data verifications: Verifying employee data that is only accessible to you can take up even more time. See if there is a workaround for you to provide the level of data the employee needs ahead of time.
• Volume of questions or issues: If the same 10 questions or issues keep coming up, it might be time to put together a targeted, strategic “FAQ” flyer or “How to Navigate…” piece that answers or addresses those questions or issues.

Evaluating your Open Enrollment process might sound like a daunting task but once its done, and improvements are made, it’ll pay dividends in the end. Make the effort now, and you’ll thank yourself (and so will your employees) when next year rolls around.

How VSMG Can Help

Need help sorting through your Open Enrollment numbers or crafting a strategy for success moving forward? VSMG has helped Arizona school districts, cities, and municipalities build smarter and better employee benefits strategies for more than 20 years. Reach out today and learn about how our support can help your team make informed, confident decisions going into the next plan year!

About VSMG

Built by and for Arizona public sector employers, VSMG is a leading employee benefits consultant dedicated exclusively to serving Arizona school districts, municipalities, and other public entities for over 20 years. With offices in Phoenix and Tucson, we deliver expert advice, forward-thinking strategies, and cost-effective solutions that help our clients attract and retain top talent.