Increasing SPD Readability

Summary Plan Descriptions often fall culprit to legal jargon and hard-to-understand concepts. Making your SPD’s get yur employees attention and comprehension can require laborious reading and re-reading to ensure that the language used is understandable and accurate. Here are some ideas to enhance your employee’s SPD experience:

-Add some pictures and graphics to your SPD’s to break up the pages and add visual interest. 

-Adding color call-outs for important information can be an easy way to highlight important information.

-Reduce pages by eliminating unnecessary text.

-Use similer colors, fonts, and graphics for all of your HR communication. When employees see the HR brand on all items, they will relate the graphic design to the importance of the information.

For additional tips and tricks, call an HR or Communication Consultant, or visit www.verityassoc.com

 

How Do You Feel About Your Voluntary Benefits?

Verity Associates would like to hear your opinion on your voluntary benefits. If you are in HR, we would love to hear your “gripes and likes”. Do you like your providers? Does the paperwork get in the way of your other duties? Is it too expensive?

If you are a consumer of voluntary benefits, we’d like to hear about what you’ve elected. Disability? Life Insurance? Shopping Discounts? Are you satisfied with your providers?

Thank you for all your input!

 

Getting an ROI on your Employee Communication Efforts

Today, I found a great Ragan video on ROI. In the video, an explanation is given on why ROI is so important during these economic times. ROI can be used to prove the relevance and value of your communications to your C-level execs. While an increased rate of awareness may mean success to you, ROI means success to your CEO.

So how will you measure ROI on your communications? You can use your same surveys, but you’ll have to quanitify your variables.

• How much money does the company save for every 1% of increased awareness?
• How much money does the company lose when your employees don’t read your newsletters?
• If you reach your wellness participation goal, how much will the company save in reduced absenteeism?

These are just a few examples of ways to quantify your communications.

For more information on getting a higher ROI on your employee communication visit www.verityassoc.com or email me at cbourne@verityassoc.com. Show your CEO how your department is working for the shareholders too.

 

Communicating Change

Whether you are changing your employee benefits or your customer offerings, change is often difficult to adapt to. Your audience needs to be able to easily cope with and understand the changes that you are planning. They also need to see the same (if not more) value in the new way of doing things.  If you are changing your benefits, engage your employees in the positives of the changes. If you are changing your price, give your customers the same perceived value they felt before. Uncertainty is your audiences’ main fear. By addressing and relieving concerns, you will create strong change communication that won’t leave any of your employees or customers in the dark.

 

For additional information on effective change communication, visit www.verityassoc.com or call Christina Bourne @ 770-393-2750 ext. 102