Ford and Xerox have a better idea: make Ford’s benefits guide beneficial

Last year Ford and Xerox redesigned Ford’s online Annual Enrollment eGuide for 2016, making stunning improvements in readability and usability, and saving big by junking Ford’s live benefits roadshow for salaried employees (attended by only one in nine salaried staffers last year). For their overhaul, Ford and Xerox Business Services have won the “Most Improved Design (Electronic)” category in Ragan’s 2015 Employee Communications Awards.

A partial list of what Ford and Xerox changed or did away with:

• They reduced the 2015 eGuide’s 20 content tabs to seven menu items and did away with replicating content tabs on every online page of the eGuide.
• They replaced print-heavy text boxes with technology that provides details to the user in pop-up and drop-down boxes.
• They rethought the content of the eGuide, giving only info that employees wanted. 
• They eliminated lengthy details of Annual Enrollment pages with web page links and links to pdfs.
• They simplified the lengthy, complicated “What’s New” section, creating more white space and readability. 
• 2015 eGuide users were forced to move between two separate pages to compare medical plans; the 2016 eGuide medical plans are side by side on a one-page scrollable chart with drop-downs and links for easy comparison.

The Ford-Xerox eGuide team achieved some impressive results with their new approach:

• 3,000 fewer Annual Enrollment information-please calls than in 2015 (a 16 percent decrease).
• 2016 Benefits and Enrollment eGuide web hits: 47,500. Annual Enrollment video hits: 22,500.
• 2015: 80 benefits roadshows at 23 U. S. locations. Fewer than 3,000 employees attended the roadshows. 2016: No benefits roadshows, and Ford saved lot of time and money.

The 2015 eGuide cost $24,000, but featured no pop-up window technology and was not accessible by anything but a desktop computer. The 2016 eGuide cost $16,000, but it replaced seamlessly the Annual Enrollment Video.

Congratulations to Ford’s Catherine Biondi, Kathleen Hurt, and Katelyn Davis; and to Xerox Business Services’ Cheryl Desjardin, Krista Bassett, Christopher Wood, and Steve Coogan!