Services
Employee Communications
& Benefit Statements
Benefit Statements Improve Employee Communication
Employee Communications have never been more important. Changes in benefit plans, reorganization, rumors of business difficulties and/or takeovers, make it all the more essential to offer clients a wide variety of communications programs.
Our specialists include writers, graphics designers, and production coordinators. On some projects, we have worked with clients to explain the reasons behind a change in the organization's primary business objectives, communicate changes in benefits plans or implement an organization-wide incentive compensation plan with "stay put" bonuses for key employees and functions.
Benefits Statements
Benefits Statements are one of the most important areas of company – employee communication. Companies spend great sums on benefits but most employees do not appreciate the value of their benefits. Benefit Statements will ensure your employees understand—and value—your benefit program.
What is a Benefit Statement?
A benefit statement is a personal summary of an employee's benefits, including an estimate of the cost to provide those benefits. It highlights the value the employee receives from the company over and above the regular paycheck. Plus, because the statement can be used to confirm such information as benefit elections and beneficiaries, it helps verify the accuracy of benefit records.
From Basic to Amazing
Depending on your budget and imagination, your benefit statement can be anything from a basic one-page summary (illustrated to the right) to a medium level complexity report to a personal portfolio with lots of bells and whistles. Production can be as simple as black ink on one sheet of white paper to fold-outs or multi-page reports with special covers and bindings. Paper selection, colors, fonts and artwork can create a unique look. Our graphics experts can match the look, tone and style of your other benefit communications.
While we are happy to produce the simple statements, for one client we produced an entirely customized statement that was not only graphically integrated into the look and feel of their other communications, but was specifically programmed to reflect a wide range of benefit possibilities depending on the level and location of employee.
We programmed the statement so that the benefits provided to senior executives would not show at all on a staff statement. This is a far better approach than showing the staff member something like "car allowance" and then $0.00 for the benefit. It's better not to show car allowance at all, and we were able do that using a few dozen "if-then-else" instructions in both Excel and Word.
The Cost
Cost depends on the scope of the work: the amount of computer programming needed and the complexity of statement production (art work, printing, assembly, and distribution). Five factors play a key role: the number of employees, the number of benefit plans, the complexity of the benefit plans, the number of states in which employees work, and the production approach you select. We're happy to meet with you at no obligation to discuss options and provide an estimate.
Plan Your Statement Early
Benefit statements usually summarize the year that has passed, so they generally print after the close of the calendar year. To be effective communication tools, you want to distribute your statements as soon as possible after year-end. As with any first time effort, there's some "behind the scenes" work that must get started.
Now is the time to develop your benefit statement. Remember, it takes time to make decisions, develop content, define information fields and data sources, and run tests. If you wait, you may miss the window of opportunity to give your employees benefit statements for another whole year.
"Through the years, Easter Seals Southern California has confidently partnered with Lipis Consulting on a range of difficult compensation projects and related issues. As a non-profit social services organization, Easter Seals is always constrained by scarce financial resources while needing compensation programs that sufficiently reward a mission driven workforce. Incredibly, Lipis Consulting has always developed innovative and workable solutions to the challenges while staying consistent with the reality of the non-profit world."
"Our employees include kid's marketing, promotions and communications professionals who consistently produce award winning work. We knew the company was not getting the appropriate level of credit for our way-above-average benefit plans.
LCI designed benefits statements with a kid's theme that matched our culture and promoted our plans effectively. Each page of each statement was unique so that the employee saw only the benefits that applied to him or her. Even our in-house programmers were impressed with the sophisticated programming. The statement was easy to comprehend and appealed to the "promotions and marketing" mindset of our employees. We are confident our employees now understand and appreciate the investment that we make in this critical aspect of our overall program."
Over the years we've seen certain problems crop up on a regular basis. Though common, the following short list of pitfalls often have innovative and even bold solutions that turn blunders into opportunities. In some cases they can be avoided entirely.