HCW Benefits Blog

Contributor:
Chris Tutino, Communications Specialist
Hill, Chesson & Woody 

Developing messages for your employee population may seem like the most common sense task in your everyday workload. After all, how hard can it be to craft an email on how the end of your company’s FSA (flexible spending account) year is coming up and that employees need to submit their expenses before they lose the money? Better yet, why wouldn’t an employee pay attention to that email and then claim they never received it AFTER the deadline has passed?

We all know this happens. But, the question is, why? And, how can we keep it from happening?

From our first two installments of this six-part series, you’ve already determined what your communication objectives are and who your audience is. So, when it comes to message development, the best way to approach the words on the page is to figure out what will motivate the audience to act. For our FSA example here, we don’t want employees to miss out on money they’ve earned.

While the subject of your email to employees could be something like, “FSA Claim Period Ending Soon,” you could be a little more creative, like an ad agency. Maybe have a little fun and lead with something like, “You Will Lose Money this Year…!” and then follow it up in the first sentence by saying, “…if you miss out on our FSA deadline for claiming eligible expenses.” Then you can list eligible expenses, detail the claim filing instructions including links to the necessary forms and offer a phone number or email as a reference point for questions employees may have.

Crafting messages that motivate your employees to act is somewhat of an art form. But, once you know what makes your audience tick, it can be a fun way to exercise your creative juices. Who knows, you may even get some compliments for that creativity!

In next week’s installment of Developing an Employee Benefits Communication Strategy, we’ll talk about how using email to reach employees may not be the only channel you should use to get your messages out.