As a trusted business partner, you strive to provide solutions your clients need to satisfy the demands of their workforce. Recent isolved research reveals what their workforce wants is consistent communication and reliable technology.

Businesses are challenged with providing an empowering employee experience (EX). And benefits – what is offered and how they are elected – play an important part in shaping it. In fact, according to isolved’s third annual Voice of the Workforce report, employees consider benefits one of the most important parts of EX – coming in just behind payroll and professional development.

The good news? According to the same survey, more than half of employees say they don’t feel stress during the benefit election process. However, there is room for improvement and employers are wise to seek out solutions that create a stellar experience to remain competitive in the hunt for talent.

So, what can your clients do and how can you support them? We asked employees what their employer could do differently to improve benefit enrollment at their organization. Here are a few of the top responses and key takeaways:

Offer clear communication

Keeping employees informed about the benefits election process is crucial to their overall experience. Assist your clients in developing clear and effective communication strategies, ensuring that employees receive timely and comprehensive information about their benefit options. Conducting educational sessions for your client’s employees to explain the details of benefit plans, answer questions, and address any concerns to promote informed decision-making can go a long way.

Provide cost analysis for benefit plans

Employees want clarity and transparency in their benefit plan options. Cost analysis helps employees make decisions based on their personal needs, preferences and budget. Another benefit of cost analysis is insight into total compensation. Our survey found that 77 percent of employees consider benefits part of their total compensation when evaluating job opportunities. Encourage your clients to provide cost analysis as it demonstrates the full value of their compensation package beyond just salary.

Create customizable benefits packages

The right benefits are very important to employees, and many will shop around for an employer that can offer what they want. Encourage clients to provide benefits that are less likely to be offered, but rank high on employees’ wish lists, to get a competitive advantage. These include company equity options, transit and parking reimbursement, lifestyle discounts and 401(k) matching.

Technology to elect benefits

Employees are already inundated with decisions during open enrollment. So, it should be no surprise that employees want fewer manual processes to contend with. Employees want to be empowered to elect benefits through an enrollment platform. In fact, 72 percent of employees prefer to self-serve for HR, benefit and payroll tasks, intelligently connected human capital management technology streamlines open enrollment as well as the entire employee life cycle, allowing for a positive experience.

Recommend a solution to your clients that enables their employees to research, select and enroll in the benefits that suit them—on their own terms and without burdening their HR team. Better technology, coupled with more information, is the key to helping your clients deliver a superior benefits experience. It’s also the key to building stronger, enduring client relationships.

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