Explaining Voluntary Benefits & Off-Cycle Enrollment

Posted on February 26, 2019 by Jamie Hesbon | Senior VP of Business Development in Business, Corporate Protection, Employee Benefits

In today’s highly-contested labor market, employee benefits have emerged as one of employers’ largest competitive differentiators when it comes to attracting, engaging, and retaining talent. This has led to increased personalization of offerings and the rise in popularity of voluntary benefits. According to the 2018 Emerging Trends: Voluntary Benefits and Services Survey by Willis Towers Watson, 69 percent of employers believe voluntary benefits will be a very important component of their employee value proposition in the next 3-5 years.

These flexible, progressive employee benefit offerings provide numerous advantages for both Human Resources teams and the workforce.

Off-Cycle vs. Traditional Enrollment

If you’ve ever worked in a corporate environment you’ll recognize the hustle and bustle of the traditional open enrollment period. It’s the time between November 1^st and the end of the year that HR teams are encouraging employees to make traditional benefit choices, such as healthcare selections and retirement savings vehicles.

While these basic benefits are table stakes for any employer, they aren’t changing the game when it comes to hiring and retaining top talent. That’s where off-cycle enrollment and voluntary offerings come in.

Voluntary, off-cycle employee benefits can be rolled out anytime throughout the year since they generally aren’t bound to federal regulations like tax withholdings. Whether company-provided or employee-paid, off-cycle benefit offerings make a tangible impact on an organization — giving HR a way to motivate their workforce with programs that matter to them on a personal level.

Popular Non-traditional Benefits

With healthcare costs on the rise, organizations are looking for ways to provide employees with additional value through supplemental benefit options. From mental and financial wellness programs to pet insurance and long-term care assistance, more and more customization within progressive benefits is available each year. One of the most popular and fastest-growing of these benefits is identity theft protection.

Identity theft protection is not only a high-value, cost-effective benefit that employees appreciate, it’s also a smart business decision that reduces fallout in the inevitable event of a data breach. For employers who offer IdentityForce’s top-rated identity theft protection to their employees, regardless of enrollment, all employees receive full protection through our data breach guarantee.