How to Create a Successful Cross-Generational Benefits Communication Plan

Ensuring your benefits communication reaches employees of all ages is not only the right thing to do, but it can create opportunities for engagement that lead to optimal health outcomes for your workforce. This article provides a starting point to build a cross-generational benefits communication plan by highlighting some generational insights and outlining a six-step process. 

Communicating Benefits Across Age Groups 

The key to designing a successful cross-generational benefits communication plan is deceptively simple: consider everyone. Too many communication plans rely on a one-size-fits-all approach, treating benefits messaging as a checklist rather than a strategy. A plan that delivers a standard open enrollment announcement and mid-year check-in to every employee might not always lead to the desired result. Instead, consider a strategy that implements marketing principles and generational differences. 

Marketing principles 

The most effective employee communication strategies increasingly mirror brand marketing communication principles. One of the most powerful levers—and among the easiest to implement—is using an omnichannel approach to benefits communication. This refers to a connected communications experience, where each channel (e.g. email, video, online benefits hub, printed flyers) supports each other with a unifying message. Just as marketers use multiple channels to reach buyers, benefits communication needs to take a variety of forms to reach employees. You can learn more about an omnichannel approach in The Campaign Mindset: Why HR Leaders Need to Run Open Enrollment Like a Marketing Program. 

Generational differences 

To consider how generational differences shape benefits communication, we need to understand how each generation typically uses their benefits. Those insights can help provide a benefits communication framework that reaches every generation. 

Generational Insights from the State of Employee Benefits Report 2026 

Every year, we look at generational trends in the State of Employee Benefits Report 2026 ¹ and the “subtle shifts align with our expectations based on the rates of Baby Boomers leaving our dataset and Zoomers joining.” Our claims data shows consistent generational differences across multiple health conditions and behaviors, including cardiovascular conditions, reproductive health, mental health, musculoskeletal conditions, cancer and preventive care usage. 

Because the age-based trends are so reliable year over year, they create an opportunity for HR leaders to create benefits communication that are intended to then influence behavior. Here’s a look at some of the year-over-year trends we’ve seen in this year’s report and tips on what to communicate: 

Baby Boomers: Carry the highest clinical complexity in the workforce. Cardiovascular conditions affect 70–71% of this population, cancer prevalence sits at 13–14%, and overall cancer-related spend rose 5.7% year-over-year. Despite this complexity, 71% engage with preventive care, and 73% choose traditional health plans, reflecting a preference for comprehensive, predictable coverage. 

Communication tip: Prioritize condition management resources and proactive outreach that helps them make the most of their coverage. 

Gen X: Sits in the middle of all generations in preventive care engagement, with 63-65% seeking preventive services and the highest share of medical spend allocated to preventive care. Yet they also face rising rates of cardiovascular conditions (47–50%) and musculoskeletal issues (39%), and they use out-of-network providers at higher rates than younger cohorts—reflecting a generation that proactively seeks out the right care.

Communication tip: Highlight condition management programs, care navigation tools and voluntary benefits like critical illness and long-term disability coverage.

Millennials: Millennials sit at the intersection of financial stress and mental health strain: 79% say financial pressure often or sometimes affects their wellbeing, and 40% have taken time off due to stress or burnout. Reproductive health is also a defining benefits category for this generation, with demand for fertility benefits and financial counseling outpacing interest in other offerings like student loan repayment or caregiving support.

Communication tip: Weave together mental health resources, family planning support and financial wellness programs for a holistic view of employee benefits.

Gen Z (Zoomers): Report the highest rate of work absences due to mental health, stress, or burnout—44% compared to a 33% national average—making mental health support a non-negotiable for this cohort. They also express notably strong interest in personalized benefits guidance and holistic financial planning, signaling a desire to understand and trust the system before engaging with it. When offered both options, 54% of Gen Z enrollees choose traditional health plans over HDHPs, prioritizing predictable coverage over potential savings account benefits. 

Communication tip: Lead with simplicity in your communications and highlight your offerings of mental health resources and financial wellness tools. 

Implementing these targeted communication tips for each generation may help inform employees of the benefits that are most relevant to their needs. Employees can then make informed decisions about selecting and utilizing benefits that help support their optimal health outcomes. 

Generational Makeup of Your Workforce 

These insights can be a helpful anchor, but the age distribution of your employee population matters more than nationalized trends when it comes to creating your cross-generational benefits communication plan. Human resources information systems (HRIS) can provide demographic data on age groups and you may want to consider additional data such as career stage and family status. Once you know what your breakdown looks like, you can design a communication plan with targeted messaging to serve your entire audience. 

Read more: Your Essential Guide to a Winning Multigenerational Benefits Strategy 

Creating a Cross-generational Communication Plan 

Once you’re up to date on the generational trends and your employee population, you’ll be prepared to create a benefits communication plan that speaks to everyone in your organization, no matter their age. 

Follow these six steps: 

1. Check your population. Review and document the age distribution of your employee population as a whole and by location, division or department. 
2. Ask employees what they want. Survey employees about the best channels of communication, whether they be interested in channels you don’t currently use (such as texts), frequency of benefit messages, and their interest level in other communication supports (virtual office hours, Q&A sessions, video content)
3. Track your previous communications. Review the performance analytics on previous communication efforts. This can provide a benchmark to use for your new communication plan. 
4. Identify opportunities for improvement, such as expanding communication channels, adding repeats/reminders, organizing support events or creating targeted messages for certain demographics. Communication on retirement or preventive health tasks may look different for each generation but also consider using claims data to create personalized guidance or incentives. For example, your claims data might reveal that employees with children have a high rate of emergency department use for non-emergent conditions. This highlights an opportunity to send personalized, targeted communication on cost-effective alternatives like urgent care clinics or telehealth options. 
5. Update your benefits communication plan accordingly. 
6. Review and refresh. Make a plan to review and update benefits communication plan regularly (1-2x yearly). These updates might occur as you prepare for open enrollment or roll out a new benefit. 

Measuring Cross-Generational Benefits Communication Efforts 

Measuring the efficacy of your benefits communication plan helps you continually fine tune it to ensure your messages are getting out there. Consider the following areas as you evaluate your efforts. 

Performance metrics 

The first step in measuring your communications impact is to think like a marketer. Start with engagement metrics, like email open rates and click-through rates, to provide a baseline for tracking future efforts. If you’re new to communication metrics, pick just a few key metrics to track for the first year. 

Employee feedback 

Employee feedback remains a crucial component. Consider developing an open enrollment survey and include questions about benefits communication, such as where and when they remember seeing benefits communications, where and how they want to get benefits information and level of awareness of specific benefits/programs you’ve been promoting. Gauging how your communication is translating into the employee experience can be a valuable tool to help identify your next goal. 

Claims data 

Engagement and utilization data can be helpful in illustrating where you might need to improve communication. For instance, if your claim data show that many covered individuals are not getting any preventive screenings, you can respond with a communication campaign to make sure employees understand what is covered and why they should use this benefit. 

In the State of Employee Benefits report, we identified a similar opportunity with supplemental or voluntary benefits, where participation can lag. "This small gap may shrink if employers improve communications and incentives that help employees understand the coverage available, how to use it and why it benefits them."

Communicating Benefits Across Generations 

Communication is just one piece of the puzzle that leads toward better health outcomes for employees and increased cost savings for the employer. When people are more aware of and better understand their benefits, they are more likely to engage with them. Benefits communication should be an ongoing effort that extends beyond open enrollment. 

Learn how to keep benefits top of mind by Creating a Benefits Communication Calendar for Year-Round Engagement.