SOMERS, N.Y.—When IBM Corp. introduces a new benefit or makes a plan design change, Marianne McManus, director of health benefits strategy and design, makes sure her benefit communications team is involved at the start.

“Early on in the process, she sits down with the communications team to discuss the issues being addressed and the objectives so that we can collaboratively come up with an approach,” said Mary Barton, vp of workforce communications, who leads a team of four communications specialists at IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y.

Ms. McManus' style is “a much more collaborative and early involvement than you'll find in the typical benefit communications process,” Ms. Barton said, drawing from her past experience as a consultant at Mercer L.L.C.

“More typically at companies, everything is siloed. It's not a collaborative experience. But at IBM, we're all about expertise and collaboration,” Ms. Barton said. “We brainstorm together. Sometimes, even great ideas are complicated to explain, so part of our job is to winnow that down to make it easier for employees to understand.”

Nearly all of IBM's health benefit communications are published online because most of the employees are fairly tech savvy, Ms. Barton said. The Health Management Center, on IBM's company intranet, is connected to a transactional center hosted by Fidelity Investments. Some of the content was developed internally by IBM, and other parts were developed with partners. It includes content and tools for enrollment and other types of decisionmaking, such as provider and hospital selection.

However, despite the sophistication of IBM's employees, print and sometimes verbal communications still are made available to elderly retirees, some of whom are in their 90s, Ms. Barton said.

For example, when IBM introduced new benefits options to retirees in 2008, the company hired several retirees to staff a call center and call older retirees to ask if they had received their information packets and whether they had any questions. IBM also launched a new website specifically for that program.

“It was a human touch in what is otherwise a sometimes overwhelming process,” Ms. Barton said.

One of the most challenging benefit communications initiatives involved introduction of the Healthy Living Rebate for childhood obesity.

“When you think about it, the real audience is not our employees; it's really whoever is cooking,” Ms. Barton said. “In that case, we employed some old-fashioned things like home mailings. We also made conference calls available to the spouses of employees.”

When IBM introduced first-dollar coverage of primary care this year, Ms. McManus, Ms. Barton and her team hosted a conference call for managers to ensure they would be able to answer employees' questions.

“Working closely with Marianne and others on IBM's HR team, we've experimented with a number of different approaches to communicating complex, hard-to-understand benefits issues....-We've held webcasts and Web meetings with employees, and sometimes their partners or spouses, to explain key aspects of new programs. We're looking forward to doing more with IBM's own internal social media system. And through it all, Marianne and the team work with us closely to brainstorm ideas, evaluate results and consider how to continually improve,” Ms. Barton said.