What “The Pitt” Can Teach Us This Open Enrollment Season
Spoiler alert: This article discusses a scene from The Pitt’s season two finale.
The doctors, nurses, and support staff on The Pitt dedicate their lives to caring for others, just like the millions of hospital workers they represent. They walk into rooms on someone’s worst day and find a way to help. They deliver news no family wants to hear, then gather themselves for the next person who needs them.
But who cares for them?
In the season two finale, Dr. Robby helps save a mother and her baby, then admits to his colleague Dr. Abbot how deeply he’s struggling. The work has given his life meaning, but the toll has become hard to bear.
It’s a moment that brings the person behind the role into focus. Someone can be capable, committed, and there for everyone else while struggling to find a way forward themselves.
That tension exists far beyond a hospital. People show up for work carrying lives we may know very little about, and being dependable doesn’t mean they’re doing okay.
As 2027 open enrollment approaches, it’s worth asking: when the people we count on need help themselves, have we made it easy enough for them to actually get it?
Even when support is available, finding it and figuring out how to use it takes energy someone may already be running short on.
Stress makes benefits decisions harder
Navigating benefits asks more of someone than we might realize. They need the time and headspace to understand their options, compare tradeoffs, and follow through on next steps. For someone worried about making rent, caring for a parent, or navigating a major life change, that can be a lot to ask. Even a well-intentioned enrollment email can feel like one more thing to figure out.
Humankind’s research reflects what many of us feel firsthand: personal stress can make it harder to focus, make decisions, and follow through. That means stress doesn't just make people feel bad. It can make navigating a benefits decision harder, too. 79% of workers say life stress distracts them at work. That stress doesn’t disappear when they open your enrollment email.
Recent HBR research challenges the assumption that employee stress is primarily a workload problem. For benefits teams, it’s another reason to consider what someone is carrying before asking them to take on one more decision.
Think about what we're really asking: We take a person who is stretched thin, hand them a dense set of options with unfamiliar terminology and real financial stakes, and give them a deadline. Then, when they don’t act, our instinct is to send another reminder, hoping this one will help. A person who is overwhelmed doesn't necessarily need a longer FAQ. Handing one over can feel like handing a heavy manual to someone already treading water.
Volume can teach people to tune out
There's a second problem with the "send more" strategy, and it compounds the first. Every additional message competes with every other message for attention that's already spoken for. When people are stretched thin, the urgent tends to win, while the important-but-complicated gets saved for later. Benefits communication can easily end up in that second category.
So the twelfth reminder doesn't land twelve times harder. If it doesn’t help someone get past what’s holding them up, it can become another piece of background noise. From inside a stressed employee's inbox, it can read as one more demand on capacity they don't have.
What actually works: relevant support and someone to help
Telling people what’s available is only part of the job. The next question is whether they can actually use it: did the right support get to the right person at a moment they could act on it? That's what really matters.
Shrink the decision, don't restate it. People under strain need help narrowing their options and understanding where to start, rather than a comprehensive catalog re-sent on a schedule.
Route instead of broadcast. A new parent, a sandwich-generation caregiver, and a 24-year-old on their first plan do not need the same message. Relevance is what earns attention that volume can't buy.
Put a human at the point of need. Sometimes the most valuable benefit interaction is simply a person who can listen for a minute and say, "Based on what you just told me, start here." Digital tools are valuable, but a conversation can help someone work through uncertainty and feel supported enough to take the next step.
Measure whether support reaches people. Opens and click-throughs tell you whether someone opened a message or clicked a link. They can't tell you whether your people got the right support, or whether it changed anything.
Who takes care of the people everyone counts on?
In that conversation on The Pitt, Abbot gives Robby room to be someone who needs help. He notices his friend is struggling, listens, and encourages him to find support. In our own workplaces, those needs can be harder to see, especially when someone is still showing up, doing good work, and helping everyone else.
Open enrollment gives employers a chance to make support easier to reach. That might mean helping someone narrow their options, reaching out before they have to ask, or giving them a person who can work through the next step with them.
The people everyone counts on should have someone they can count on, too. Sometimes, a simpler path to support begins with someone noticing they could use a hand.