Benefits managers are getting over their aversion to talking publicly about health benefit plans and using social media to cut through the clutter of information and connect with employees.

. . . [For instance,] Ikea looked at the Twitter phenomenon and said: If you want your employees to make good health care decisions, meet them where they’re at. Thirty-six percent of Ikea’s employees are millennials. No one expected them to read packets of information sent through snail mail. So on April 8, at 7 a.m., Ikea became one of the first companies to communicate the details of their health plans on Twitter.

. . . With each new technology or application, the way people communicate changes. Open enrollment used to be as simple as sending packets of information to someone’s home. Those days are over. To cut through today’s clutter of information, more companies are communicating to employees in ways that employees themselves communicate.

 “Benefits communication needs to keep up or they are going to lose their audience altogether,” said Jennifer Benz, a communications consultant in San Francisco.

. . .  Social media can lead to more informed discussions about health benefits. Websites like Twitter, Facebook and blogs allow employees to form communities where peers can ask and answer questions.

The beauty of social media is that spouses and other decision makers can easily access important information, Benz said. Twitter may be the Internet darling of the moment, but such micro-blogging technology can be applied to company intranets as well.

. . . Some employers prefer company blogs, where posts are private and, for the verbose, not limited to the staccato of 140 characters. Last year, Sun Microsystems launched a blog during open enrollment to talk about benefits. The blog posts now supplement stories from the company’s monthly benefits newsletter.

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