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Open Enrollment just wrapped, or is close to wrapping, and there's a good chance a well-meaning HR leader looked at the final numbers and thought, "Great, we survived. Same time next year?" That instinct is understandable. It's also exactly how OE goals quietly die.
Setting Open Enrollment goals is a lot like setting a New Year's resolution at midnight on December 31: the intention is real, but the timing all but guarantees it won't stick. Real, lasting goals need cooler heads and better data - and the best time to gather both is now, while last season's Open Enrollment is still fresh, not in October when next season's is already at your door.
Why Most Open Enrollment Goals Never Make It to Q2
Most HR and payroll teams don't fail to set OE goals because they lack ambition. They fail because the goals get set the wrong way, at the wrong time, or by the wrong people.
A few familiar patterns:
- They're aspirational, not measurable. "Improve the enrollment experience" sounds nice, but nobody can tell in March whether it's actually happening.
- They're written once, in a hurry, right after OE closes, then filed away until the next OE opens.
- They live with HR alone. With no visibility for payroll, benefits, or leadership, so nobody notices when a goal quietly drifts.
None of that means a team dropped the ball. It means the goal-setting process itself needs a sturdier foundation - one built on evidence, not adrenaline.
The Best Time to Set Goals Is Right Now
The best time to figure out what needs to change about a recipe is right after you've eaten the meal. Open Enrollment goal-setting works the same way. The details are freshest, the pain points are still visible, and nobody has had time to smooth a rough OE into a hazy "it was fine, I guess."
Waiting until August or September to think about next year's goals means working from memory instead of evidence. By then, a specific complaint about a confusing HSA comparison chart has softened into a vague sense that "benefits communication could be better." Vague feelings don't make good goals. Specific data does.
Build Goals on Evidence, Not Instinct
Every useful OE goal starts with two ingredients: what the numbers say, and what people say.
The numbers side includes completion rates, time-to-complete, support ticket volume by topic, and where employees dropped off mid-enrollment.
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Are you tracking the right KPIs? Selerix's Guide to Employee Benefits Metrics and KPIs is a solid starting point for deciding what to track and how to calculate it, including a breakdown of the 9 benefits metrics worth tracking.
The people side is what employees actually said - in surveys, help desk tickets, and manager conversations. Selerix's Employee Benefits Survey research found that only 23% of employees say they genuinely understand their benefits, even though 46% feel confident managing them independently - a 23-point confidence gap that a "successful" completion rate can hide completely. (If you want to run something similar internally, this guide to writing employee benefits survey questions is a helpful starting template.)
Put the numbers and the feedback side by side, and patterns show up that neither one reveals alone. A high completion rate with a spike in HSA-related support tickets doesn't mean OE went well - it means people clicked through anyway, still confused.
What Real Open Enrollment Goals Sound Like
Specific goals beat inspiring ones every time. Compare:
| Vague | Specific |
| "Make benefits communication clearer." | "Cut HSA-related support tickets by 25% by rewriting the plan comparison email using the three questions every benefits message should answer." |
| "Improve the enrollment experience." | "Reduce average enrollment completion time from 42 minutes to under 30 by simplifying the voluntary benefits step." |
| "Boost participation." | "Increase HSA enrollment among eligible employees by 10 percentage points using segmented reminders instead of one blanket email." |
Good goals also get a name attached. A goal with no owner is just a wish. Pair each target with the person or team who checks on it, and a real date by which "checking in" happens - not "sometime before next OE."
Payroll Deserves a Seat at This Table
Open Enrollment goal-setting tends to be treated as an HR-only exercise, but payroll teams see things HR often doesn't: the deduction errors that surface on the first paycheck of the new plan year, the frantic corrections after an HSA contribution failed to sync, the calls that land on payroll's desk simply because HR's line was busy. Leave payroll out of the goal-setting conversation, and you're missing some of your best data and setting yourself up to relearn the same lessons next January.
A goal like "reducing first-paycheck deduction correction requests by 30%" is exactly the kind of measurable target that only comes into focus once payroll and HR compare notes. It's specific, it's ownable, and it's a genuinely useful signal about whether the entire enrollment process worked.
Keep Goals Visible All Year, Not Just in October
A goal set in November and revisited in October is really just a New Year's resolution wearing an HR badge. Selerix's complete guide to open enrollment makes the case for treating OE as a year-round process rather than a single fall sprint. Goals hold up a lot better when they're checked on quarterly instead of annually:
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Q1: Are last OE's fixes actually implemented, or still "in progress"?
- Q2: Is communication landing the way it's supposed to, based on open and click rates?
- Q3: Are systems, carriers, and compliance requirements confirmed and tested well ahead of launch? Selerix's Open Enrollment Kickoff prep checklist is built for exactly this stage.
- Q4: Did this year's OE actually move the needle on the goals set back in Q1?
For teams that want a starting framework rather than a blank page, Selerix's Open Enrollment Guide hub and the OE Rescue Kit strategies for reducing enrollment confusion both break the work into small, deployable steps rather than one giant fall project.
Want a more data-driven walkthrough of the process, plus a free worksheet for mapping your own OE goals? Selerix's How to Set Open Enrollment Goals guide goes deeper on turning raw enrollment data into a realistic baseline.
The Takeaway
Open Enrollment goals fail for the same reason most resolutions fail: they get made in a hurry, based on feelings instead of evidence, and then get abandoned the moment life gets busy again. The fix isn't more ambition. It's better timing, better data, and a named owner on every target.
Right now, the data is freshest, and the lessons are clearest. Use that window. Your future self, buried in October OE prep, will thank you.
About The Author
Michelle Kershner is Senior Director of Sales at Selerix, where years of ACA compliance expertise translate into practical, no-nonsense guidance for employers and brokers navigating Open Enrollment, benefits strategy, and IRS reporting. She leads employer education efforts on ACA best practices across industries and is a frequent speaker on webinars and industry events on compliance and enrollment strategy.
Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn.
About Selerix
Selerix believes Open Enrollment shouldn't feel like a fire drill you forget about until next October. Our benefits administration and ACA compliance platform helps HR teams and brokers turn real enrollment data into clearer communication, smarter goals, and enrollment experiences employees actually understand - not just click through. Trusted by brokers, carriers, and 26,000+ employers serving 14 million enrollees, Selerix is built to make benefits feel less like paperwork and more like something people can rely on.
