Mid-summer may seem like the perfect time to slow down and unwind with a vacation, but for HR teams and business leaders, it’s actually the perfect time to rethink one of your most powerful tools for retention and engagement: employee benefits. 

Here’s how to take advantage of this mid-year point to evaluate and strengthen your benefits strategy ahead of open enrollment in the fall. 

1. Understand What’s Working (and What’s Not) With a Mid-Year Check-In

By July, your benefits program has had six months to make an impact. This mid-year point is an ideal time to take stock of what’s resonating with your team and what could use some fine-tuning. Are employees taking advantage of the benefits you’ve put together? Are new resources or initiatives getting traction? Is there any confusion around any of the offerings?

According to Aflac’s WorkForces Report, 78% of employers believe their workers are highly satisfied with their benefits—yet only 59% of employees express satisfaction. Benefits and perks that you think might be meaningful could be underutilized—and those that you wouldn’t expect may have gained traction. 

Now is the time to audit benefits performance and make adjustments—whether that means phasing out underutilized perks, or exploring new options employees are asking for. Acting now means you can pivot and plan before open enrollment begins. 

2. Send Out a Summer Survey

There’s no better way to identify how your current benefits are resonating than to hear from employees themselves. Consider sending an employee benefits survey well in advance of open enrollment. You may even make it anonymous to collect the most honest feedback. 

You can use this survey to understand whether underutilized benefits are not being used because they’re not valued or if there is merely an education gap. This can help you determine whether to put additional resources behind it to make sure employees understand it, or to go in a different direction. 

The survey can also be used to determine which benefits are currently missing that employees want. Maybe it’s adding mental health resources or exploring options for on-demand pay. You won’t know unless you ask, so be sure to include space for employees to write in the kind of benefits they’d most like to see. 

3. Offer Employee Education

Employee benefits are only valuable if people understand them. The relative quiet of summer can be a great time to hold a webinar or send out educational materials about benefits that your team might not understand well enough to take advantage of. 

It’s important to find the channel your employees are most likely to engage in, whether that’s written materials, an all-staff meeting, or an informal lunch-and learn. With more flexible schedules and fewer competing initiatives during the summer months, employees may be more likely to engage. 

You may even ask existing third-party vendors about co-marketing or educational assets that can help inform employees how to take advantage of their perks.

4. Explore Your Options & Make Informed Decisions

Open enrollment planning often starts in earnest in the fall. But by beginning the planning process now, you avoid rushed decisions and give yourself space to fully explore innovative new benefits. 

Some potential new offerings gaining traction include:

• Fertility coverage that can help cover the cost of medical treatments, or even psychological counseling and support.
• Student loan assistance that can help employees manage or repay their debt.
• Fast pay options, such as modern paycards that help you bypass excessive fees or payment delays, same-day cashless tips, or earned wage access
• Childcare support such as stipends, or even on-site childcare options.
• Wellness reimbursements for employees to spend on health or wellness-related expenses such as gym memberships, fitness classes, or even health coaching.

When deciding which new benefits to add, it helps to determine which options are low or no-cost to your organization. There are often things you can add to round out your benefits offerings that don’t actually cost anything to you or your employees.

Combine that criteria with perks that actually make an impact on workers’ day-to-day-lives, and you’ll be sure to find new benefits to help you stand out from the crowd. By taking the time to explore your options now, instead of hearing about them last minute, you have time and space to do your research, compare vendors, and implement new benefits seamlessly.

The Calm Before Q4: Use It Wisely

Summer typically brings a seasonal lull for many industries. With fewer meetings and slower operations, July offers breathing room that rarely exists in Q4. 

Instead of waiting for the hectic end-of-year benefits rush, you can use this time to review your offerings and see what needs to change—and what you can offer that will make a meaningful difference to your team. 

Branch provides employees with fast access to wages, tips, and other earnings—at no cost.

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Learn more about what Branch can provide your employees.