Benefits Communication 2
Benefits Communication:
Does one-size-fit-all?
In an increasing competitive environment, benefits are becoming a crucial element for
organizations to recruit, retain, and motivate employees. Many organizations boast their benefits
such as health coverage, retirement, disability, education, and childcare. However, with the
increasing choice and complexity of benefits, organizations face a new challenge of
communicating effectively these benefits. In addition, employees are getting an increasing
amount of complex information on benefits on which they base their decisions regarding
retirement, health care, day care, etc. Thus, benefits communication is becoming essential in
order to find the best way to reach employees with the right type and the right amount of
information.
Much of the literature on benefits communication is anecdotal and from professionals
mainly in Human Resources. Most publications on benefits communication are atheoretical and
are based on advice, not on empirical research. Topics covered by professionals include issues
such as how to communicate benefits online (Burzawa, 1999), benefits communication costs
(Vernarec, 1997), personalized benefits statements (Ackley, 1992, Gellas, 1995), event-based
communication (Breuer, 2001), and how to write clear and simple messages (Bruner, 2000).
Academic research on benefits communication has been done mainly from human
resources, management, and marketing perspectives. Thus, there is a real need for
communication scholars to become involved in conducting empirical research in this area
specifically studying the communication processes, such as messages, symbols, relationships, etc.
Researchers in organizational communication and public relations would bring an important and
valuable contribution to the field of benefits communication.
Convention