8 tips for crafting a clear employee benefits guide

When gearing up to make changes to your company's employee benefits package, creating an informative guide and sharing it widely among the workforce can help facilitate the rollout. An employee benefits guide explains all the different non-wage compensation your organization offers as well as the enrollment process.

These guides can help employees better understand — and appreciate — the package while taking some of the educational work off of the HR team. However, not just any document gets the job done. A poorly designed guide will sit ignored and unused by employees.

By following these eight steps, you can craft a clear employee benefits guide that your staff will look forward to reviewing.

1. Decide on the most effective format

Before creating the material for your employee benefits guide, think about how you'll deliver the final version. Printed guides are still an option, though not as popular as in the past. They could be worth using if you know your employees prefer physical resources. Just note they're more expensive to produce, especially since fixing errors and updating information means reprinting everything.

Creating a digital PDF is more cost-effective and easier to distribute via email or by texting the link. Employees who want a hard copy could print it themselves.

You could go a step further and create a web version of your benefits guide. That way, you could add more links, videos and interactive content like surveys. This can also enable you to track how many employees access the guide.

2. Determine section order by employee interest

Your benefits guide should detail the plan options and every benefit the company offers. Depending on what you included in your benefits package, that might mean explaining 10 or more topics. Accordingly, you'll have to determine what should come first

Consider the employee perspective. Most will prioritize the essentials like health insurance, dental, vision, paid leave and retirement savings, as these were rated most important in a 2024 SHRM Employee Benefits Survey. Put these sections first.

From there, you could move into the other financial parts of your voluntary benefits program, such as disability, life insurance and student loan repayment programs. If you offer any non-financial benefits, like wellness programs or flexible work arrangements, explain these as well.

You could also look to make helpful connections throughout the guide. For example, in the health insurance section, mention how your workplace wellness program can help keep employees healthier and reduce out-of-pocket spending.

3. Prioritize readability for non-financial experts

By design, a benefits guide will cover financial subjects your employees might not be familiar with. For this reason, be careful about using industry jargon when discussing voluntary benefits and other more complex topics. Pay attention to the language used and ensure that someone outside of HR will understand it.

You should also define technical terms as they come up, such as deductibles, copayments or premiums. You may want to include a glossary so employees can look up terms they aren't familiar with.

As you design the benefits guide layout, make an effort to break up the content. Don't feel like you need to fit everything on one page, especially for more complex topics. Presenting less material on each page can make the guide easier to digest. If you've chosen to roll out the guide digitally, you won't have to worry about the extra pages adding to printing costs.

4. Repeat crucial information throughout

Essential information is worth repeating throughout the employee benefits guide. For example, you might have one section explaining your open enrollment process in detail. But then, in other parts, you may briefly touch on this information again, like listing the key open enrollment dates and sign-up process for benefits with a deadline.

You could do the same with any significant changes you've made to the benefits program compared to the previous year, with one page explaining everything in detail and then callout boxes emphasizing the changes relevant to each benefit. That way, you get the crucial information across to people who skim the guide rather than reading it cover to cover.

5. Use illustrations and sample calculations

Think of how you could add visual aids throughout the document to break up the copy. For instance, if you offer a Health Savings Account, you could create a graphic showing how much employees would save by maxing out their contributions each year, along with their potential investment return and tax savings. Even simple stock photos could help make the guide feel more engaging.

You should also create sample calculations to help highlight information. As an example, if you offer three health insurance plans, you could make a diagram showing how much people might pay for premiums and out-of-pocket expenses depending on the plan selected and the amount of care needed. A graph could further highlight this example as another visual aid.

6. Consider real-life examples

You can explain all the technical details perfectly, but in the end, the question on every employee's mind will be, "Which plan is right for me?" To account for this, create suggestions related to the different plan options — and position them throughout the benefits guide — so employees can better answer the question for themselves.

For instance, you could show why a high deductible health plan would make sense for a single young adult who is relatively healthy, while a married employee with children might prefer more comprehensive coverage. Or you could lay out the types of employees who would get the most from using the different voluntary benefits.

You can take this idea further and include quotes from satisfied employees that detail what they received from different parts of your benefits package. This strategy could be helpful for offerings you feel are underutilized because it proves the value to other employees.

7. Add an FAQ section

Complete your employee benefits guide with a section that covers the most frequently asked questions (FAQs). Consider what subjects employees most commonly ask about during open enrollment and include those queries. Once again, this is a chance to repeat the most crucial information, like enrollment deadlines and plan suitability. Summarizing all this in an FAQ section helps those who like to skip to the end.

Be strategic about the FAQs. You could feature specific areas you want to highlight, like a new benefit you worry people don't know enough about. Additionally, consider adding a question you wish more employees were asking.

8. Continue refining each year

Your benefits program changes year after year, so your benefits guide should evolve along with it. You'll need to update sections with the different plan information.

Make an effort to collect employee feedback as well. What sections did they find helpful? What additional material would they have liked to see? By continuing to improve your guide, you can help your employees get more out of it.

Supporting employees and encouraging use of benefits

Ultimately, an employee benefits guide will not substitute or replace the value of in-person benefits education from your HR team. However, employees appreciate having another useful resource outside formal training sessions.

If you need help crafting your guide, contact an Optavise representative who can answer your questions and provide materials that you could use to further support your employees.

Optavise is your benefits partner

Optavise is a trusted partner, guiding employers and their employees through healthcare choices including voluntary benefits, benefits administration, and year-round advocacy services that reduce costs and increase benefits engagement.