Ready to help employees make smarter benefit decisions and take work off your desk? With a benefits microsite, you can do just that. These specialized sites offer a wealth of information about everything employees need to choose and use their benefits effectively. Benefit microsites can turn overwhelmed, confused employees into informed, savvy benefit consumers. We love them, and we think you will, too!

8 reasons to love benefit microsites

1. An effective benefits communication platform

Provide employees with a central hub for their entire suite of benefits information. Give them the resources they need to make educated decisions during onboarding, open enrollment, or throughout the year.

Most employees find health and wellness benefits to be confusing. Microsites take the guesswork out of choosing a plan by offering access to health plan descriptions, enrollment steps, wellness initiatives, retirement plans, educational videos, documents, forms, and more in one centralized location.

2. Easily share information with the family

Getting important benefits information to family members at home can be a challenge. Since benefit microsites do not typically include confidential or private data, these sites can reside outside of the company’s firewall, and therefore do not need to be password protected. This gives employees the opportunity to share the site with their spouse. The entire family can benefit from easy access to the company’s health and wellness resources.

3. Keep employees up to date

Open enrollment details, important benefit reminders, FAQs, and more can change throughout the year. Microsites are quicker to create and update than typical websites or printed materials, which ensures accurate information is always available. Once open enrollment is over, you can easily hide that page of the site.

4. Customized for your company

Your microsite can be created to fit your company’s unique brand or to complement the benefit campaign theme. A recognizable design will create an inviting and comfortable user experience. This customization can even extend to the website address – using your company name within the link (e.g. www.yourcompanybenefits.com) makes it easier for employees to remember the site in the future.

5. User-friendly

Give employees what they need, when they need it, with 24/7 access from any device. Streamlined navigation, an organized structure, and clickable links help employees find answers quickly. Link to the responsive, mobile-friendly site from a variety of sources, such as emails, benefit guides, company intranets, and postcards. With a website dedicated solely to benefits, employees will always know where to go for answers.

6. Year-round access

A benefits microsite allows you to highlight specific content that’s relevant as the benefits journey ebbs and flows throughout the year. Launching a wellness program in the Spring? Adding a new benefit that requires employee education before open enrollment starts? Want to advocate the best ways to utilize the benefits your company offers? These are all topics that may get lost in the open enrollment period but could be important to the overall effectiveness of your benefits plan.

A microsite is a source to direct employees throughout the year for specific campaigns as part of the employee benefits journey. Emails, posters, postcards, flyers and newsletters are all appropriate vehicles to deliver a specific call-to-action back to the microsite when the topic is relevant to the plan and to the employee.

7. Accessible to everyone

Make sure all employees can use the site with simple solutions that break through accessibility barriers. Solve ADA challenges by offering solutions for those with hearing, vision, and other obstacles to website access. Some solutions include text alternatives for images, voiceovers, closed captioning, and translation services. The Web Accessibility Initiative offers an extensive accounting of ADA standards and guidelines.

8. Measurable results

Microsites are an effective method of benefits communication, but don’t just take our word for it. You can receive analytic data for page usage and click rates to determine your microsite’s effectiveness.

Helpful tips to get the word out

Your company is invested in the health and wellbeing of its employees. Microsites give employees the ability to understand and fully utilize these benefits. Here are some tips to make sure your employees know about this valuable resource:

• Send an email to all employees to introduce the benefit microsite.
• Offer a mobile web app, such as CPI’s Mobile Gateway, to provide employees a link to their benefits microsite and other plan information from their mobile device.
• Reference the site with links or QR codes in benefit guides, newsletters, or postcards.
• Create a video to show employees how to get the most out of the site.
• Set up fun competitions to encourage employees to explore the site, such as a treasure hunt or trivia game with a raffle prize.

The increasing popularity of benefit microsites suggests that companies are looking for, and finding, a streamlined approach to communicating benefits. Benefit microsites are visually appealing, easy to access, and simple to navigate. Employees who are better informed about their benefits are able to make smart healthcare decisions for themselves, their families, and the company.

Contact the team at Communication Partners to find out how we can help you communicate benefits more effectively during open enrollment and year-round.