What Didn’t You Accomplish Last Year?
You say you had great intentions to launch a wellness plan? Oh, maybe that was a 401(k) or Profit-Sharing plan? Oops, I guess I didn’t hear that right–you just wanted to launch a Flexible Spending Plan?
The point is, you had a great idea and you wanted to launch a program that would be a great benefit to your employees.
Now is the time to revisit those great intentions. Outline the best way to achieve your employee benefit dreams.
Why didn’t it launch?
Well, it was most likely because there were too many fires to put out.
I’m guessing you had to focus 99.99% of your efforts around the health plan, and that your best laid plans just died. There was so much stress around your most expensive item. This didn’t allow you to pay attention to the lower cost items (or even free items) that can make so much positive impact on your most valuable asset—your employees.
Timing is everything.
If you are looking to start up a Flexible Spending Account or a Transit Reimbursement Account, then definitely launch it simultaneously with Open Enrollment efforts.
However, if it’s employee engagement in a wellness plan, you have more flexibility and maybe this should be staged 60 or 90 days after open enrollment–when you can apply better focus on this effort.
What if you are exploring Retirement Accounts? These can go either way.
A short plan-year is an option.
Just because you want your plan to be aligned with Open Enrollment, doesn’t mean it has to launch at the same time.
Heck, sometimes it’s really nice to start a new plan off-cycle and spend sole-attention to the newest, latest and greatest offering for your employees.
But, do yourself a favor and plan for it to align going forward. This is where a short plan year can be of value. And, it is much easier to define this up front than revise or amend your plan dates after the fact.
Commit, don’t allow for delays and plan for the unexpected.
Things come up. They always do. An avalanche of work is going to come crashing down on you. It always does.
Plan for it by staging your launch in small incremental steps. That way it won’t be too intense to fit in your schedule.
And, engage your broker partners and vendor partnerships to help. Communication is key, especially if you are dealing with a plan that is tested for being too top-heavy or needs a minimum employee participation to work effectively. Your outside consultants have experienced a wide variety of successes and failures themselves, make sure to tap into their experience and expertise.
This year is different. You are on schedule.
Implement something meaningful and positive for your employees this year.
