August 14, 2012
--- Employers continue
to spend too little time and fewer resources for helping employees understand
their employee benefits, a survey from Unum shows. ---
Twenty-eight percent of employees who were asked to review
their benefits in the past year said the benefits education provided by their
employers is fair or poor. Only half of those employees said they received
printed information or brochures, down from 70% in 2008.
Just over one-third of those employees were offered a chance
to attend an information and question-and-answer session about benefits, down
from 52% in 2008. The percentage of employees who had access to a toll-free
number to speak with a benefits adviser dropped sharply, to 29% in 2011 from
47% in 2008.
Unum’s fourth annual survey of American workers also shows a
high correlation between effective benefits education and a workplace
satisfaction.
More than eight in 10 (82%) employees who rated their
benefits education highly also rated the employer an excellent or very good
place to work. Conversely, only 27% of employees who rated their benefits
education as fair or poor also said their employer was an excellent or very
good place to work.
Seventy-nine percent of those who rated their benefits
education highly said they would choose to stay with their current employer
even if they were offered the same pay and benefits elsewhere.
Conducted online by Harris Interactive, the survey polled
more than 1,100 employed adults following the 2011 benefits enrollment period.
Rebecca Moore