3 minute read
During the exciting open enrollment period, Human Resources (HR) professionals play a crucial role in educating employees about their benefit options, communicating important enrollment deadlines, and providing answers to any questions that may arise. However, with the high demand for their expertise, HR can sometimes feel overwhelmed, leading to potential miscommunication, underutilization of benefits, missed deadlines, and employee dissatisfaction.
To alleviate this pressure and ensure a smooth open enrollment process, employers can harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Innovative chatbots, virtual assistants, and AI-generated algorithms can swiftly and accurately provide employees with the information they need, eliminating the need for constant human interaction.
Benefits of Using AI
AI can help create the following efficiencies during open enrollment:
- Personalized support. HR professionals may not have the time to sit down with every employee to help select their benefits. This can cause employees to underutilize benefits or overpay for coverage they don’t need. AI algorithms may be used to analyze employee info to provide them with personalized benefit selections. This can help to reduce HR workload and help employees find the best benefits to suit their needs, increasing satisfaction and utilization.
- Analyze enrollment. Understanding the employees’ enrollment experience can help HR make improvements for next time. Certain AI tools can help employers review employee feedback, highlight concerns, and find potential areas for improvement.
- Enhance engagement. AI tools can be used to send personalized reminders, educate employees about their benefit options, and predict which employees may delay enrollment based on past behavior. This can create a more educated employee base, improving employee engagement and boosting enrollment.
- Streamline the benefits process. AI tools can be used to help verifying employee eligibility, processing claims, answering questions, and other repetitive tasks.
- Improve self-service. AI chatbots or virtual assistants can help answer employee questions, improving accessibility and reduce confusion during this critical period. It can also help educate employees to make benefit decisions, which can lead to greater satisfaction and increased utilization.
Drawbacks of AI
Although AI tools offer significant advantages, it's important to acknowledge their limitations.
- Underutilization of AI. Providing AI tools doesn’t guarantee that employees will use them. A study found that out of 2,000 employees, only 43% used AI decision support tools when it was made available to them. Getting employees to use AI tools may require additional HR outreach and education.
- Errors and outdated information. Certain AI tools, like ChatGPT, may provide users with unreliable information, negatively impacting employees' benefits decision-making process, satisfaction, utilization, and trust, as well as being counterproductive for employers aiming to reduce human error and miscommunications.
- Lack of transparency. Lack of understanding about AI recommendations can lead to challenges in interpreting reasoning behind them. This can be problematic if employees feel they received poor advice, leading to worse benefits decisions.
- Privacy concerns. Asking employees to share confidential and personal information with AI technology can create trust and privacy issues. AI tools may improperly share sensitive information, damaging employee trust and leading to litigation. Employers must consider data collection, informed consent, and data deletion before recommending AI to employees.
Conclusion
Employers should proceed with caution when implementing AI technology during open enrollment. If added, employers should consider auditing AI performance, implementing human oversight, regularly monitoring AI outputs for privacy and other violations, and consulting with attorneys about applicable laws. Download the bulletin for more details.