To say that HR Tech was a week well spent is a massive understatement. We had some amazing conversations, connected with friends and colleagues, and had a ton of fun. One of the highlights of our week? Getting to share the stage with ADP and USI to talk about the future of employee benefits!

“Forging a Path to Help Millions Make Smarter, More Informed Benefits Decisions,” was presented by Dan Murdoch, CMO of Nayya, Anne Knight, Principal Product Manager at ADP, and Anne Burkett, National Practice Leader, Workforce Solutions, at USI. The panelists spoke about the current and future state of employee benefits, and how HR leaders can combat the unique challenges facing our workforces today.

How ya feeling, HR?

“HR leaders are stressed,” Murdoch acknowledged as he dove into the presentation. His statement was, understandably so, met with collective nods and murmurs of agreement throughout the audience. It is widely known that organizations, and HR leaders specifically, are being faced with challenges we have never experienced before, such as:

• Workforces torn between the remote vs. in-office debate
• Pandemic related vaccination requirements
• Inflation hammering away at employee’s wallets
• The great resignation threatening the longevity of workers
• The rise of “Quiet quitting”

And so much more.

Most employees don’t know the full scope of the work HR leaders have on their plates day in and day out. Underneath the hiring, firing, and employee admin that is seen by the rest of the organization, lies layers and layers of complex tasks and challenges that need to be managed.

Employee outlook

For employees, things aren’t looking much brighter. Inflation has just about everyone watching their bank accounts, stressed about price increases across core necessities like gas, groceries, utilities, and rent. The inflated cost of living has many employees thinking about new roles that promise higher salaries to help manage their finances.

This means that HR leaders are now also being tasked with ways to help employees cut-costs and fight inflation, in order to retain their workforce. Since increasing salaries isn’t always an option, one way you can do this is through benefits. Benefits can be the single most important financial decision employees make each year — but unfortunately many employees don’t know how to select the benefits that are best for them, and often don’t choose the most cost-efficient plan for their unique needs. Recent research from our team at Nayya uncovered just how unconfident employees are when it comes to benefits and compared it to HR's assumption about benefits understanding:

And this lack of confidence only increases with younger generations:

Making better benefits decisions

It’s clear that employees everywhere struggle with making informed and confident benefits decisions. Parsing through the benefits guides and 'doing the math' on their own makes choosing the benefits that meet their unique mental, physical, and financial needs nearly impossible. Everyone faces different circumstances and their benefits need to respond to whatever life may bring.

Incorporating a decision support tool into benefits enrollment can make a world of a difference for employees who struggle to understand and select benefits. Decision support can empower employees to choose the benefits that best fit their needs. As Anne Burkett put it, you need to think of employee benefits in terms of “mind, body, and wallet.” If employees can’t select the benefits that best support their mental health, physical health, and financial needs, it’s going to be HR’s job to incorporate better benefits education to support them—or risk losing them to the Great Resignation.

Giving employees what they want

When thinking about benefits in terms of employee retention, there are 2 core aspects. One, which we’ve already discussed, is better educating employees so that they truly understand the benefit choices they’re making—giving them the ability and knowledge to choose the right plans for their circumstances. The second aspect is one that was brought up by Anne Knight: making sure that your employees know what benefits are available to them, and ensuring that the benefits you’re providing are what your employees actually want. You could offer the best benefits package in the world, but it won’t do anything to help employees if they don’t know about the offering. And it won’t do anything to retain employees if the package isn’t in line with their wants or needs. New unique benefits are working wonders for employee attraction and retention, things like “paw-ternity leave” (the ability to take some PTO when you adopt or rescue a new pet), and other clever benefits don’t pose much risk to an organization, and can really make the world of a difference for employees who are evaluating benefits packages.

For example, a recent article from Benefits Pro outlined employee thoughts around pet-related benefits:

“Pet benefits being a motivating employment factor was especially true amongst younger consumers, with 49% of Gen Z and 45% of millennial respondents saying they would be motivated to stay with a company that offers pet benefits or leave for one that does.

When it comes to the type of voluntary pet-related benefits employees want, they expressed interest in several different offerings: 40% told Nationwide they would like to have pet insurance available; 29% would like paid time off to care for a pet; 27% would like a pet-friendly office; and 14% would like their employer to offer “paw-ternity” leave to take care of a new pet.”

Don’t hesitate to poll your employees to make sure you’re in line with their needs, interests, and goals when it comes to benefits!

Check out the slides

This panel outlined a path to stellar employee experience and financial success as they relate to benefits. If you’re interested in the presentation slides, you can access them here.