Think about the last time you drove somewhere unfamiliar. You could have pulled out a map showing every highway, side street, exit, and possible route to your destination. Technically, everything you needed to get there would have been right in front of you. But chances are, you used a GPS instead. 

There’s a reason for that. A GPS doesn’t give you every possible direction at once. It tells you what matters based on where you are and where you need to go next. Employee benefits communication could take a similar approach. 

HR teams already put a lot of work into making benefits information available. Benefits guides are created, plan documents are posted, enrollment reminders are sent, and required notices go out on time. But as we explore in The Connected HR Playbook, information being available doesn’t necessarily mean employees have absorbed it or know what to do with it. The map may be there, but employees can still need help navigating the road ahead.  

Start With Where Employees Are 

HR and benefits teams naturally work around calendars and processes. There’s onboarding, eligibility, compliance deadlines, open enrollment, COBRA, renewals, and everything else that keeps the benefits engine running. Employees experience those same benefits differently. They experience them in moments. 

A new hire may be trying to choose coverage while learning a new job. Another employee may suddenly need to understand their plan because their spouse is expecting a baby. Someone else may realize late in the year that they still have money sitting in an FSA. In each case, the employee isn’t thinking about HR’s calendar; they’re thinking about what they need to do next. 

That distinction matters. The Connected HR Playbook points out that employees don’t experience HR’s checkboxes—they experience whether they feel supported or on their own. A better communication strategy starts by considering where employees are in their journey and what guidance could help at that particular moment.  

Think of it as dropping the pin before giving directions. 

Don’t Hand Everyone the Same Map 

There’s a reason your GPS doesn’t announce every road, exit, gas station, and restaurant within a 20-mile radius. Most of that information isn’t relevant to where you’re going. Benefits communication can fall into a similar trap. When there’s a lot employees could know, it’s tempting to give them everything and leave them to figure out what matters. 

More information, however, doesn’t automatically mean better guidance. Selerix research found that 51% of employees say content that feels personal to their situation is most likely to prompt them to act. Among employees who ignored an open enrollment message, nearly 1 in 3 said it was because the message didn’t feel relevant to them. Those numbers make a good case for moving beyond one-size-fits-all communication.  

That doesn’t mean HR needs to create a completely different message for every employee. It could mean communicating based on eligibility, enrollment status, an approaching deadline, or another relevant employee moment. The goal is to help employees separate what matters now from everything they might eventually need to know. A good GPS filters out roads you don’t need, and good benefits communication can help filter out some of the noise, too. 

Give Employees the Next Turn 

Better benefits communication doesn’t have to mean more benefits communication. Nobody is asking HR to turn the employee inbox into a highway lined with billboards. Instead, the opportunity is to make communication more timely and intentional. A few useful directions along the way can be more valuable than handing employees the entire roadmap at once. 

As outlined in The Connected HR Playbook, that could look like an FSA balance reminder in October, a mid-year check-in highlighting underused benefits, or a wellness benefit reminder in January. The communication doesn’t have to be elaborate. It needs to arrive at a time when the information is relevant enough to help an employee make a decision or take action.  

Instead of simply saying, “Here’s everything you need to know about your benefits,” consider what the employee needs at that particular point in the journey. A new hire might need help understanding their options and enrollment deadline. Someone approaching year-end may need a reminder about an FSA balance. The destination hasn’t changed, but the directions become much easier to follow. 

Don’t Wait Until the Final Exit 

Nowhere is this more important than open enrollment. When employees hear little about their benefits throughout the year, open enrollment suddenly has to become the entire benefits education strategy. Employees may have a relatively short window to understand their options and make decisions that could affect them for the next year. That’s a lot to navigate at once. 

The consequences can extend beyond enrollment itself. Selerix research found that 35% of employees say they’ve regretted a benefits choice after enrollment, while about 4 in 10 have delayed or skipped care because they weren’t sure what their plan covered. Better communication can’t eliminate every difficult benefits decision, but it can give employees more context before they have to make one.  

Waiting until open enrollment to begin benefits education is a little like staying silent for 100 miles and then announcing the exit when you’re already passing it. A more connected approach gives employees directions before the decision point. Plain-language plan comparisons, reminders, and prompts can help employees build their understanding before enrollment begins. As the Playbook recommends, HR can treat open enrollment as the end of an education process, not the start of one.  

Let Your HR Data Be the GPS Signal 

A GPS can’t give useful directions without knowing where you are. HR teams already have plenty of signals that can indicate where an employee is in the benefits journey. A new hire becomes benefits-eligible, a coverage window opens, an ACA offer is triggered, or an enrollment deadline approaches. Those moments already exist within HR processes. 

The opportunity is to connect those signals more intentionally to employee communication. When a new hire becomes eligible, for example, that event can become an opportunity to provide a clear, plain-language walkthrough of their options and next steps. Compliance milestones can become communication opportunities, not just administrative ones. That’s where benefits administration, compliance, and employee communication can begin working as parts of the same experience.  

For a deeper look at connecting these moments across the employee journey, explore The Connected HR Playbook. 

Sometimes You Need to Recalculate 

Even the best GPS occasionally has to recalculate. Employees may miss a message, an explanation that seemed clear may generate questions, or employees may reach enrollment without feeling prepared. Those aren’t necessarily dead ends. They’re signals that can help HR improve the next route. 

Post-enrollment surveys are one way to find those trouble spots. HR can ask whether employees felt prepared, whether communications helped, and what they wish they had known earlier. Recurring employee questions can provide useful clues, too. If HR keeps answering the same question, there may be an opportunity to answer it earlier in the journey.  

The goal isn’t to build the perfect communication strategy once and follow it forever. It’s to listen, learn, and adjust as employee needs change. A little recalculating can make the next benefits journey easier for employees and HR alike. 

The Destination: A More Connected Employee Experience 

Thinking like a GPS doesn’t mean sending employees another message every time something changes. It means making the communication you’re already doing more connected to the employee’s situation. Know where they are, anticipate important turns, and give them relevant guidance before they reach a decision point. Then pay attention to where they’re still getting lost. 

Ultimately, the destination isn’t more communication. It’s a more connected employee experience—one where benefits administration, compliance, and communication work together instead of traveling on separate roads. Employees can get clearer guidance when they need it, while HR has an opportunity to spend less time responding to confusion that better upfront communication might have prevented. That’s a route worth exploring. 

Your employees probably don’t need another map. They need to know where to go next. 

Ready to Connect the Journey? 

The Connected HR Playbook explores practical ways to bring benefits administration, compliance, and employee communication together into a more coordinated, year-round experience. Start with the gaps creating the most friction for your team and employees, then build the connections one turn at a time.  

Download The Connected HR Playbook →