According to a recent survey, only 10 percent of U.S. adults stick with their New Year’s resolutions and nearly half (47 percent) of all resolutions are broken within the first month. You can help your workforce do better than that!
New Year’s resolutions demonstrate people’s desire and willingness to improve some aspect of their lives by “starting fresh” on January 1. Despite less-than-encouraging success rates – or maybe because of them – HR teams have the perfect opportunity to harness employees’ enthusiasm for self-improvement and partner with them to achieve their goals.
Whether your employees want to get healthy, get organized, save money, grow professionally, learn something new, travel more or any number of possibilities...you’re there to support them with your company’s employee benefit programs. Use these campaign recommendations to set off on the right path!
Set Your Campaign Objectives
You may want to increase enrollment in or utilization of specific benefit products, programs or resources that are mapped to the most common New Year’s resolutions.
For example,
- Increase enrollment in voluntary financial wellness products
- Encourage participation in your company's January wellness challenge
- Boost utilization of your health coaching or gym membership programs
- Engage employees in using career development resources
Consider These Benefits Enrollment and Engagement Ideas
The New Year’s Resolutions theme is timely, relevant and easy to tie in with employee benefits. Promote products and resources that can help employees stick with their New Year’s Resolutions, such as:
- Wellbeing app – for staying healthy, body and mind
- Identity theft protection – for building digital security
- 529 college savings account program – for family financial planning
- Gym membership program – for getting in shape and managing weight
- EAP – for reducing stress, reaching goals
- Charitable donation matching program – for helping others
Set Up a Communications Plan
As a month-long campaign, you’ll want to deploy a robust communications plan that reaches employees with compelling information and offers throughout the month.
- Comms Mix: Connect with employees over the channels they prefer and are likely to pay attention to. These include a combination of email, text, corporate social media, postcards with QR codes, the company intranet and on-premises signage. Aside from formal communications, company and team leaders can also promote the campaign at all-hands and departmental meetings.
- Messaging: Your campaign communications can raise awareness of various benefits/programs and share information ranging from educational (e.g., tips to eat healthy, tools to set a family budget) to brand-affirming (e.g., how the company supports employees’ personal goals). Importantly, you want to make working towards resolutions rewarding – and show that you’re here to cheer them on!
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Call-to-Action: Ensure that your communications provide clear directives, such as “Visit your benefits portal,” “Join our January wellbeing challenge” or “Check out this handy resource.”
Use This Sample New Year’s Resolution Campaign Kick-off Copy
Give This Sample Timeline a Try
Week of January 3
- send kick-off email
- invite employees to share their resolution over corporate social channel
- mail postcards to employees’ homes reminding them how to log in to their benefits portal
Week of January 9
- send email highlighting health and wellness benefits
- share various health and wellness resources via social
- remind employees about your company’s various ERGs
- give every employee a company-branded water bottle
Week of January 16
- send email highlighting financial wellness benefits
- share various financial planning resources via social
- host a virtual lunch-and-learn session with a financial planner
Week of January 23
- send email highlighting professional development benefits
- encourage managers to set up time with team members to discuss career goals
- promote your peer mentorship program
January 30-31
- send email wrapping up campaign
- invite people to share the progress they’ve made on their resolution via social
This Campaign Helper is featured in the Q12023 Employee Benefit Enrollment & Engagement playbook, where more insights are waiting for you.
Q12023 Employee Benefits Enrollment & Engagement Playbook
