Making benefits personal at Rich’s
Rich’s is a global food company with close to 10,000 associates in the U.S. Most of them work in plants or warehouses – producing, packing, and shipping foods that end up in homes across the country.
Associates are the heartbeat of the business. But when it came to annual benefits enrollment, the conversation proved limited and not as far-reaching as the team had hoped. There were also multiple languages to accommodate.
The process relied on long guides, generic emails, and complex online content. And it wasn’t landing. Many associates didn’t have a company email address. Most didn’t use the intranet. And phones weren’t allowed on the “shop floor”. Select pieces were mailed to homes, but not everything could be sent. So, when open enrollment came around, most people didn’t engage – they simply rolled over last year’s choices.
That meant thousands of people were stuck in plans that didn’t suit their lives anymore. Plans that cost them (and Rich’s) more than they should have.
Rich’s needed to flip the script. They asked us to help show people the value of making active, informed decisions. And to do it in a way that worked for their workforce.
Our approach? Make it personal. Make it relatable. Make it theirs.
We launched a three-month campaign focused on simplicity, clarity, and visibility. Instead of just telling people what their benefits were, we showed them why their choices mattered.
We built our communication strategy from four principles:
- Keep it simple: Respect people's time with brief, clear messages delivered regularly. Give headlines with easy access to details. Help people understand what's new, what matters, and what they need to decide.
- Connect the experience: Create natural flow with clear next steps—join a meeting, read more, log in to choose. Avoid dead-ends. Use QR codes and quick links. Bring leaders, HR, and managers into the conversation early so they could partner with us, answer questions and provide real-time feedback.
- Make it real: Share stories of associates at different life stages—managing mental health, planning retirement, switching healthcare plans. Show how "benefits are with you, every step of the way." Replace jargon with relatable examples people could see themselves in.
- Use channels wisely: Meet people where they are—home mailers, workplace screens and posters, social channels, and the intranet. With many non-native speakers in Rich's workforce, we translated all materials into US Spanish and key pieces into 12 languages.
The enrollment campaign wasn’t just about sharing information; it was about sparking real engagement and empowering associates to take ownership of their benefits. By recognizing their starting point and current reality, with clear, relatable messages and trusted voices, we helped turn a complicated process into something meaningful.
The result? More associates actively reviewing and selecting benefits that truly fit their needs. Fewer people cycling in plans that didn’t meet their needs. And a benefits program that felt like it was genuinely theirs – not just a box to check.
At Rich’s, “making it yours” became more than a slogan. It became a way to put people first, one informed choice at a time.
