September 9, 2025

Close the Participation Gap: How Smarter Education Strategies Can Boost Employee Engagement

Employee benefits are a cornerstone of your compensation package, but too many workers leave valuable benefits on the table. Underutilization impacts the health, well-being, and finances of your employees, and hurts your company’s bottom line by lowering morale, productivity and retention, and weakening your employer brand.

Here’s the Good News: The Solution Is Simpler Than You Think

When employee participation and benefits engagement don’t meet expectations, robust education can be the solution. Workers, it seems, welcome guidance – in fact they’re hungry for it. A recent study found that most employees don’t fully understand their benefits and want more support from their employer to use benefits properly and navigate the enrollment process.

What’s even more compelling is recent data on the value of robust benefits education. Smart educational strategies were shown to improve employee engagement and participation across every single benefit, including retirement plans and health savings accounts. This is especially encouraging as both retirement and health benefits are characterized by low adoption in small businesses. For example, in a 2023 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, only 30% of small business employees used HSAs despite being eligible, and 40% didn’t contribute to their retirement plans even when a match was available. A robust education plan can be a simple, low-cost remedy for small employers.

Your Action Plan: 6 Proven Education Strategies That Drive Participation

Making changes to your education program? Consider incorporating the following strategies to combine clear communication, multi-channel delivery, and year-round touchpoints for ongoing impact:

Replace the once-a-year mindset with a program for ongoing education

Space out education over the year rather than condensing it into the open enrollment period. Year-round training and repetition can be especially valuable in helping employees understand complex information.

Consider dedicating a specific month to a topic – January may be wellness month, April may be retirement month, etc.

Cover the material in multiple ways

Use multiple formats and channels to communicate. People learn differently, so integrate media to accommodate different learning styles.

Mix emails, intranet posts, videos, texts, virtual and in-person lunch and learn sessions, short brochures or flyers, and more.

Make it personal and relatable

Personalize benefits with short stories about people who are making good use of their benefits.

Feature people and families that match the demographics of your employees. Whenever possible, illustrate how benefits help meet life goals or address problems.

This approach makes abstract benefits tangible and relatable.

Keep it simple

Avoid the jargon and use everyday language and terms.

Dense brochures and web pages? Employees are unlikely to read them.

Use short paragraphs and simple infographics to explain concepts and offer details. Respect the fact that most employees are pressed for time.

Make it interactive

Interactivity increases engagement, so incorporate tools like quizzes and calculators that enable employees to personalize their experience.

Provide ample opportunity for Q and A sessions with benefit experts, either virtually or in-person.

Help employees cross the finish line

Eliminate enrollment roadblocks. Even the best education will fail to boost benefits engagement and employee participation if enrollment is complex and cumbersome.

Offer a simplified, highly flexible process to accommodate preferences for paper, phone, or digital applications. Have help available if employees need assistance.

Why build your program from scratch? Put Daybright’s solutions to work.

Daybright’s enrollment, communications and administration solutions simplify the adoption of more effective and efficient benefit education and enrollment practices. Designed with ease of use and practicality in mind, these secure and customizable solutions include:

Employee Education & Communication