Is Twitter a Viable Tool for Employee Benefits Communication?

Twitter is everywhere. The micro-blogging platform, that asks you “What are you doing?” and only gives you 140 characters to respond, gets more press lately than celebrity mishaps. It is growing crazy fast, CNN loves to integrate it into the newscast and it gives even the biggest celebrities a chance to seem like real people.

Often dismissed as “fluff” in the social media landscape, Twitter is actually an invaluable tool for business, letting you quickly interact with a huge group of industry thought leaders, grab news headlines and even see what your competitors are talking about. The uses of Twitter have surprised even the founders themselves. It took me a little while to really buy in to the power of Twitter, but now I’m officially hooked.

But, can this platform be effective for employee benefits communication? Can it handle the complex needs of communicating to employees and their families about health care, 401(k)s, stock options, wellness programs, EAPs and all the other crazy and complex programs that are out there? 

I asked that on Twitter, and here are just a few of the replies:

So, it is a resounding YES. And, I agree completely. Here's why.

Four Reasons Why Twitter Works for Benefits Communication

Short and sweet. Twitter forces you to keep things to 140 characters, or about 20 words. That means you have to get to the point fast and entice your audience to link for more information. This is precisely the way effective communication should be structured, especially in our media-saturated world. And, this works really well for benefits information, where each individual needs to quickly find the information that is relevant for them and go. Too often, benefits communication is delivered in a one-size-fits-all package that has so much technical information and detail that the actual message is lost completely. There is a place for that (in your Summary Plan Description, for example) but the majority of benefits communication should be about engaging employees and families so they take action and make good decisions. Twitters’ quick to-the-point format would be great for delivering those action items in clear and simple terms.

On the Internet, for everyone to see. There’s nothing private about Twitter, as some have learned the hard way, but that is a good thing for your benefits communication. You want to get information into the hands of your employees (and new hires!) and their spouses and families as easily as possible. Unnecessary passwords are just an opportunity for your audience to get distracted by YouTube or Facebook and never return to your site or the important task they meant to do. There are Twitter-esque tools for the enterprise, like Yammer, that can live behind a firewall, but sequestering your benefits info behind all that security keeps it out of the hands of the spouses and families who are driving the largest portion of your costs. Not convinced? Here’s a full article on this topic alone.

Interactive. The @ feature on Twitter makes it easy to send a quick question or direct a reply at an individual. This makes the platform incredibly interactive—and efficient. The vast majority of benefits questions that are handled either by self-service websites and costly call centers are simple, simple, simple. “What’s the phone number for our health plan?” “Where do I submit claims for the FSA?” “What’s the deadline for the stock plan enrollment?” “Can I get reimbursed for salsa dance lessons as part of our fitness incentive?” All of these are simple less-than-10-word answers that could be handled by a benefits team member or a call center rep with minimal effort. I’d love to see a company roll out Twitter help as an adjunct to their call center. (Yes, obviously, there must be some common sense training that goes along with this but call center reps and benefits pros who are sophisticated enough to handle HIPAA regulations and FMLA rules are also smart enough to know when to say “we can’t answer that in a public forum—call us at this number.”)

Twitter can come to you. I know someone is thinking “but our employees aren’t on Twitter yet, why would we use that?” and that is a valid point. You have to go where your employees and families already are. And, you can do that with Twitter. All of the applications and widgets and add-ons that make putting a Twitter feed into another website easy are part of the reason the platform has grown so quickly. So, yes, you have to go where your people already are—is that your Intranet, your benefits website, Facebook, LinkedIn? Or, is it their mobile phones? Twitter can work anywhere and I think the mobile applications are going to become even more interesting and useful.

BUT, (there has to be a “but” right?), I do have a few cautions before you drop all your current communication channels and hire someone to man Twitter 24/7.

Some Cautions

If you use Twitter for benefits communication, it MUST be part of an integrated campaign. Twitter is just one tool and you have to give employees and families comprehensive resources and frequent updates in other media, of course. The ideal communication strategy is going to have a mix of online, print, interactive and hopefully face-to-face communication. And, just like any website, you can’t have an “If we build it, they will come” mindset—you have to consistently remind employees about the resources out there and why they should bother taking a look. (And, no, I don’t think good old-fashioned print communication mailed to homes is going away anytime soon—especially among companies who do not have completely wired workforces.)

Jargon alert. Benefits has enough jargon and silly acronyms already without throwing a new language of “Twitter” and “Tweeting” in the mix. If you use Twitter for your benefits communication, you must be very cautious not to further confuse employees or forget to define acronyms. It is no fun to spell out "high deductible health plan" when you’ve only got 140 characters to work within, but chances are pretty good your employees are not going to know HDHP, at least not the first time around. 

Understand the time commitment. An investment in any social media takes time and you need to accurately understand the commitment required, which could be significant. If you have someone on your benefits team monitoring Twitter and answering questions in real time, it might make sense to say “We respond between 10am and 2pm PT Monday-Friday. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can” so that you set appropriate expectations with employees—and so that individual can actually get some work done outside of those hours. 

I'm convinced Twitter holds tremendous promise to help engage employees and their families and get them taking action with their benefits. What do you think? Please comment below or let me know on Twitter.

Editor's Note - Jennifer Benz is founder and chief strategist at Benz Communications, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on employee benefits communication. She helps companies, large and small, connect with their people so that those people (and their families!) understand all the confusing, but oh-so-important, benefits programs that are out there. She's located in San Francisco.

Comments

[John]

Yeah, but how is Twitter better than regular e-mail for communicating with employees?

[Jennifer Benz]

Hi John, Good question!

First, not all employees have company email addresses. And, at many companies where everyone does have an email account, broadcast email is off limits. That combination makes email a tough communication channel for most large companies.

Also, email doesn't reach the spouses and families, who are driving the majority of benefits costs. Twitter can reach those audiences.

The ideal communication infrastructure would give employees and families all those options -- email, Tweets, website -- so that they could decide how to receive information.

[Terry]

Jennifer,

I do not agree that Twitter is the right media to answer an employee’s or spouse’s questions about a company’s benefits.

How do you confirm the person asking the question is legitimate?

What are the safeguards to prevent privacy information from being sent?

What are the corporate guidelines on security, right to know, privacy?

If sensitive information becomes available to the public, who is responsible?

As Twitter becomes more involved in the social network, there may be a role. For now, I do not agree with Twitter and 140 characters.

[Jennifer Benz]

Hi Terry, Thanks so much for your comment and questions, which I'm sure many people have. This is uncharted territory and the complexities of moving into social media need to be addressed carefully. You’re absolutely right, employees' personal data and personal health information should be under the highest levels of security and Twitter is definitely not the right place for that kind of information (nor is any public forum). Fortunately, the descriptions of benefits programs and how to use them don't need that level of protection—that educational information it is not personal or proprietary and is not part of an employers’ intellectual capital.

Companies need to make it as easy as possible for employees and families to make good decisions with their benefits—and putting it out on the Internet takes down one of those barriers to action. That is where I see a great opportunity for Twitter to fit in: as another tool to educate employees and families about basic program design and coverage—and to answer the very common questions that go along with offering complicated health, retirement and wellness benefits. By addressing and answering those questions in a public forum, you’re educating all employees along the way, not just the individual who is on the phone with the call center or HR rep.

Southwest Airlines http://twitter.com/southwestair does this well as does Comcast http://twitter.com/comcastcares. They are answering and addressing the common questions or issues that customers have—but never verge into the territory of personal account details or payment info. Using Twitter to educate and engage employees is an extension of this approach of using it to educate and engage customers.

To answer your specific questions about Twitter:

How do you confirm the person asking the question is legitimate? In most cases, this will not be an issue. Twitter is great for addressing the simple questions employees often get stuck with -- phone numbers, who to contact, how to file a claim, what does "deductible" mean? It does not require confirming the identity of the asker if you're using Twitter to share basic plan information that is already available online. In cases where a personal response would be required or a personal issue would be address, the individual would be directed to their HR or customer service center. No personal data would ever be exchanged through this channel.

What are the safeguards to prevent privacy information from being sent? That’s an important question and employees are likely to share this concern. It will be important for them to know that Twitter can help you understand basic information and help you figure out where to go for the complicated questions—it is not a place to address personal questions. Of course, you would want to put some common sense safeguards in place and you would need to train those who manage your Tweets about confidentiality—specifically what is and what is not appropriate in a public forum. There is an obvious distinction between what is "generic" information and what is personal. If an employee asked something that wasn't appropriate to answer, you'd simply reply "We can't answer that here--call the benefits center at ...." You can't prevent an employee or spouse from posting private information about themselves or perhaps reveling too much (ie "I was just diagnosed with cancer, who do I call at the health plan?") but that is the individual's responsibility, not the company's (same holds true around the water cooler).

What are the corporate guidelines on security, right to know, privacy? This all depends on your company, but for the most part, I think it is best practice to guard personalized information and personal data but let the general benefits information be in the public realm. Social media is pushing total transparency (as we've seen with the instant external access to layoff news and even HP’s internal memo about salary reductions being posted on a news site within hours of the employee announcement) so there is no reason to unnecessarily continue to guard benefits information. Some of my clients are comfortable having almost all of their benefits information on the Internet but still want some details like employee contributions and specific legal policies to have more protection. But, some of the largest and most traditional public companies have their full benefits summary plan descriptions on the Internet, with no password protection at all. (I’m happy to provide examples of those companies if anyone is interested—email me.)

If sensitive information becomes available to the public, who is responsible? The answer to this question is the same with Twitter as with any other media. The reality is, once you send out information to your whole employee population, it is in the public realm. Anyone who wants that information will be able to find it. But, again, the good news is, there’s not much sensitive in benefits information. Competitive companies have very similar benefits offerings by design—there are no trade secrets in employee benefits—so I’d like to see priority placed on making it easy for employees and families to get information, not on protecting the plan details.

Hope that additional perspective is helpful. I’m not an attorney, of course, and a lot of companies’ comfort or discomfort around social media stems from fear of liability issues. Here is an attorney’s very common sense perspective from the Gruntled Employee blog: http://www.gruntledemployees.com/gruntled_employees/2009/03/a-tweetable-twitter-policy.html

[David]

While Terry’s questions make sense, I think Jennifer's answers serve to address those very real concerns. The main point to keep in mind is that employers who value effective employee communications need to have a solid understanding of what tools and media are going to be most effective for getting information across to employees. At the moment, Twitter can still be considered cutting edge, at least in a corporate context, but employers should invest some time in understanding what it is and how it works in order to make an informed choice about whether it's an effective employee communications channel, either now or in the future.

[Terry]

There is a place for Twitter in a corporation’s communication tool set. I am not to the point where I am on-board with Twitter disseminating benefit information. Twitter resources may be better used answering customer questions and enhancing the corporate brand.

Quick response, one question with one answer, casual language, informal setting; there are non-Twitter ways to distribute corporate benefit information that can satisfy these parameters while adhering to privacy guidelines. If a company’s benefit information is difficult to understand, the web site is not clearly organized or easy to navigate, or the support department is slow to respond to questions, then Twitter is not going to resolve those basic building block errors.

As Twitter and the social networking evolve, it will be interesting to see the results.

Regards,