HR professionals believe that 4 in 10 employees do not fully understand their company benefit plans, according to a new survey.
ADP Research Institute, Roseland, N.J., a unit of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADP), published this finding in the latest release of its ADP HR/Benefits Pulse Survey. The quarterly report polled 501 private sector HR decision-makers online in July about issues and trends respecting the communication of employee benefits.
According to the survey, 80% of HR decision-makers believe that employees must fully understand their benefit options, yet these professionals estimate that only about 60% of their own employees do.
More than a third (36%) of large employers and nearly two-thirds of midsized firms (66%) do not have an employee communications budget related to their benefit plan, the survey says.
These percentages are unlikely to change near-term, the report adds, because HR decision-makers at about half of companies say their budget has remained the same in the past year. And only a minority expect it to increase in the next one or two years.
Of companies with a budget, HR decision-makers in about half of large and midsized companies (47% and 53%, respectively) say their budgets have remained the same in the last year.
More than half of HR decision-makers in both large (57%) and midsized companies (63%) also say they are likely to maintain their employee communications budgets in the next one or two years. And only one in five (21%) of both groups plan to increase their budget.
