Open Enrollment Wellbeing Planning: 5 Questions for HR and Benefits Consultants to Ask Before Renewal Season
Summer is just kicking off, and that means it’s only a matter of weeks before many HR and benefits teams disappear into the ritual chaos of open enrollment. Suddenly, every benefit, resource, webinar, wellness challenge, and communication plan is competing for the same tiny window of employee attention. And this year, that pressure is not exactly easing up.
PwC projects commercial healthcare cost trend will rise 9% in 2027, the highest projected trend in nearly two decades. Business Group on Health also reported that large employers expected a median 9% healthcare cost trend for 2026 before plan design changes.
So before renewal season fully takes over, it is worth asking an important question: Are we making the most of the wellbeing resources we already have?
Quick Answer: What Should HR Teams Review Before Open Enrollment?
Before open enrollment, HR and benefits teams should audit their wellbeing resources, evaluate how each resource is performing, identify underused benefits already bundled into health plans, look for redundant offerings, and simplify how employees find and use support.
The goal is not to add more wellness content before enrollment. The goal is to create a clearer, more connected wellbeing experience that helps employees understand what is available and helps HR make smarter use of every dollar.
What Is Open Enrollment Wellbeing Planning?
Open enrollment wellbeing planning is the process of reviewing, organizing, and activating an organization’s wellbeing resources before benefits renewal and enrollment season. It goes beyond choosing plans or updating benefit guides. A strong open enrollment wellbeing planning process asks:
What support do employees already have access to?
What is being used?
What is being missed?
What feels redundant?
What needs clearer communication, better timing, or a more central place to live?
In other words, it turns open enrollment from a once-a-year information dump into a strategic moment to clarify the full wellbeing ecosystem. Because most organizations are not short on resources, they are short on visibility, coordination, and time.
Why Wellbeing matters before open enrollment season
Open enrollment has a way of revealing the messiness that naturally builds all year. Maybe you have an EAP, a mental health app, financial wellbeing tools, 401(k) education, caregiving support, health plan resources, fitness reimbursements, wellness events, and manager training materials. These are all good things, but if they live in different portals, come from different vendors, launch at different times, and are promoted through one-off emails, employees may experience them as noise.
This is the fragmented wellbeing ecosystem in real life: more resources than ever, but no clear system to organize, activate, and manage them.
That matters even more when healthcare costs are rising and teams are being asked to defend every benefits decision. The question is not just, “What should we buy?” It is also, “What are we already paying for, and are we helping people use it well?”
The 5 Open Enrollment Wellbeing Questions to Ask
1. What wellbeing resources are we paying for?
Start with the full inventory, not the polished version that appears in the benefits guide. Include:
Standalone wellbeing vendors and point-solutions: EAP services, mental health apps, therapy or coaching platforms, financial wellbeing tools, caregiving support, fertility or family-building benefits, sleep resources, nutrition support, fitness platforms, meditation apps, substance use support, chronic condition resources, or digital health tools.
Health plan add-ons: Telehealth, nurse lines, condition management programs, maternity support, diabetes prevention, smoking cessation, behavioral health navigation, second-opinion services, care advocacy, cost-transparency tools, preventive care reminders, employee discounts, or health coaching.
Learning and development programs: Manager support training, leadership development, mentorship programs, psychological safety workshops, resilience training, communication training, career development resources, conflict resolution programs, and other workplace skills programs that support employee wellbeing.
Events and programming: Workshops, webinars, wellness challenges, speaker sessions, awareness campaigns, lunch-and-learns, onsite events, movement breaks, mindfulness sessions, financial education sessions, team connection activities, and one-off programs that show up throughout the year.
ERG and community resources: ERG events, discussion groups, resource guides, speaker sessions, heritage month programming, volunteer initiatives, peer support, mentorship, and wellbeing-related programming created with employee communities.
Wellness stipends and reimbursement programs: Wellbeing stipends, fitness reimbursements, lifestyle spending accounts, commuter benefits, home office support, professional development funds, caregiving reimbursements, or other flexible support dollars.
Internal policies and culture-based supports: Flexible work policies, paid leave, caregiver leave, meeting norms, mental health days, volunteer time off, bereavement leave, sabbaticals, workload planning practices, manager check-in expectations, and accommodations processes.
Benefits communication and navigation tools: Benefits guides, intranet pages, HRIS links, Slack or Teams channels, onboarding materials, open enrollment emails, vendor portals, resource libraries, and centralized wellbeing hubs.
This question often surfaces a surprising truth: many organizations have more employee support than they realized. It is just scattered across contracts, portals, departments, and vendor relationships. Short answer: Before open enrollment, create one complete inventory of every wellbeing-related resource your organization funds, offers, promotes, or receives through existing plans.
2. How are those resources performing, and why?
Utilization matters, but so does context. A low registration number for a financial wellbeing webinar might mean the topic was not relevant, the timing was wrong, or the communication did not make the value clear. A low utilization number for a crisis support resource may not be a failure. Some benefits are meant to be available when needed, not used by everyone. Instead of asking “Is utilization high?” Ask:
Is this resource reaching the right people?
Do employees know it exists?
Is the access point clear?
Does the resource solve a real need?
Is the vendor reporting data in a way we can actually use?
3. Are we paying for redundant offerings?
Redundancy is not always bad. Sometimes overlap is intentional because different employee groups need different access points. A mental health app and an EAP, for example, may serve different needs. But accidental redundancy is expensive and confusing. If three vendors offer stress management content, two platforms include financial education, and several health plan partners provide similar webinars, employees may not know where to go. HR may not know what to promote, and leadership may start asking why so many resources seem to do the same thing.
4. What would make these resources easier for employees to find and use?
A benefit can be excellent and still fail because employees cannot find it when they need it. Open enrollment communication often focuses on what is changing: premiums, plan designs, deadlines, elections, contribution limits. That is necessary. But wellbeing support needs more than a once-a-year mention. Employees need clearer access, better context, and repeated reminders at moments that make sense. That might mean a centralized Wellbeing Hub, a seasonal communication calendar, manager talking points, benefits navigation content, campaign themes, or simple “where to go for what” guides. The goal is not to make employees memorize every resource, it’s to make the next right step obvious.
5. Who is owning this?
Even the clearest wellbeing strategies fall apart if no one owns the ongoing work of making it visible, usable, and connected. Before open enrollment, clarify who is responsible for keeping resources updated, coordinating vendor communications, reviewing utilization, promoting support throughout the year, and making sure employees know where to go when they need help. For many HR and benefits teams, the challenge is not a lack of care; it is a lack of capacity. Naming an owner, whether internal or through a partner, helps turn wellbeing from a once-a-year enrollment message into a strategy someone is actively managing.
Common Wellbeing Mistakes Organizations Make Before Open Enrollment
Mistake 1: Treating open enrollment as the only communication moment. Open enrollment matters, but employees do not experience wellbeing needs on an enrollment calendar. Stress, caregiving, burnout, financial questions, and health concerns show up all year.
Mistake 2: Promoting everything equally. When every resource is presented with the same level of urgency, employees have to do the sorting themselves. Most will not.
Mistake 3: Measuring all resources the same way. Higher utilization is not always the goal. A preventive resource, crisis benefit, clinical program, and educational webinar should not be judged by the same metric.
Mistake 4: Adding new resources before auditing existing ones. New benefits can be valuable. But without a clear audit, teams risk buying more support into an already fragmented system.
Mistake 5: Assuming employees know what HR knows. HR teams live inside the benefits ecosystem. Employees do not. What feels obvious internally may be completely unclear to someone trying to find help during a busy workday.
FAQ: Open Enrollment Wellbeing Planning
What should HR review before open enrollment?
HR should review all wellbeing resources, vendor contracts, health plan add-ons, utilization reports, employee feedback, communication performance, and any overlapping programs. The goal is to understand what exists, what is working, what is underused, and what needs clearer activation.
How can employers improve benefits utilization during open enrollment?
Employers can improve benefits utilization by making resources easier to find, explaining who each benefit is for, connecting resources to real employee needs, and reinforcing key programs beyond the open enrollment period. Utilization improves when benefits are activated, not just announced.
What is a wellbeing benefits audit?
A wellbeing benefits audit is a structured review of the programs, vendors, tools, communications, and resources an organization offers to support employee wellbeing. It helps HR teams identify gaps, redundancies, underused resources, and opportunities to improve the employee experience.
Should we add new wellbeing benefits before open enrollment?
Maybe. But first, audit what you already have. Many organizations already pay for wellbeing resources through vendors, health plans, EAPs, or existing benefits partners. New resources are most useful when they fill a clear gap instead of adding more noise.
How do you know if a wellbeing resource is worth keeping?
Look at the resource’s purpose, employee need, utilization, awareness, cost, accessibility, vendor support, and fit within the broader wellbeing strategy. Some resources may be worth keeping even with lower utilization if they serve a critical or specialized need.
Why do employees miss wellbeing resources that already exist?
Employees often miss wellbeing resources because they are scattered across too many portals, emails, vendor sites, PDFs, and internal pages. Even strong benefits can go unused when employees do not know they exist, understand when to use them, or remember where to find them.
Don’t Have time, or Don’t Know Where to Begin?
On the Goga helps organizations build, run, and grow meaningful wellbeing programs through strategy, managed wellbeing operations, and employee-facing wellbeing infrastructure. We help HR and benefits teams organize, activate, and manage wellbeing resources so employees can find and use the support available to them.