Developing a benefits plan is one of the more significant tasks employers face. These plans must balance employee needs with employer resources to create a healthy and supportive professional environment. To achieve this, employers should consider the changing times and work with their broker to create an attractive and personalized benefits package at an affordable cost. While an element of customization is not a new idea, continuing shifts in employee expectations and the state of healthcare make these benefits more prevalent than ever.
As someone who wears many hats, you may not have had time to consider the various personalized benefits available in the marketplace. Exploring this concept may reveal that personalization in the workplace is an approach your team wants to consider.
The Value of Personalized Employee Benefits
Employees have varying needs and values, and basic benefits packages often fail to recognize these differences. For example, many workplaces have multigenerational teams. A person in their mid-20s can have completely different health needs and priorities than someone in their 60s.
Standard benefits packages with only one medical plan or limited options often will not satisfy every team member. Employees who feel unseen in the workplace are likelier to seek employment elsewhere, leading to lower retention rates and higher onboarding costs.
Personalized employee benefits give your team members more control to use funding or perks as they see fit. This control can give teams more confidence in their employer and view them as an asset to their well-being. With 88% of job seekers considering benefit offerings in their search, benefits plans can also make the recruitment process easier.
How To Design An Employee Benefits Program – Personalizing With Choice
Integrating choice into benefits options is vital for giving employees a sense of control. Many traditional benefits packages you may be familiar with tend to have limited employee options. How can you integrate choice into benefits? There are several avenues, but health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) are two excellent examples of offering choices to employees, while simultaneously giving them more freedom in how they use their benefits.
In 1974, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) introduced the concept of an HRA. These accounts reimburse medical expenses not covered by a company’s group insurance policy. They can cover health insurance premiums or out-of-pocket expenses. Employers own and contribute to these accounts and are only available to employees who receive health coverage.
Employers can set rules for HRAs, like dollar limits or the ability to carry over amounts from year to year. Since these accounts belong to the employer, employees cannot take them to their next job. One of the most notable benefits of an HRA is that it’s tax-free for both employers and employees.
The HSA began in 2003 to complement group insurance policies as premiums rose. Depending on the arrangement, these accounts receive funding from the employee, the company, or both. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does have a limit on how much a person can add to an HSA each year, but these accounts generally have more flexibility than HRAs.
HSAs are designed to help individuals save for future healthcare expenses, but they can also be used for current qualified expenses like covering the cost of prescriptions or doctor visits. The employee owns These accounts completely, meaning they can take the account from job to job and continue to use the funds after retirement. It is important to note that any withdrawals not used for qualified medical expenses will incur a 20% penalty and be taxed as ordinary income.
Examples of Personalized Employee Benefits
Personalized benefits can include several options, such as:
- Retirement fund accounts: Offering 401(k)s, pensions, and other retirement accounts can show you care for your employees’ futures.
- Family-building benefits: These benefits include support for adoption, surrogacy, fertility treatments, and more to help employees build their families.
- Financial wellness support: Financial wellness can include help from accountants and investment professionals to support employees through financial decisions.
- Caregiving benefits: Coverage for caregivers can support those with children, older parents, and family members with disabilities.
- Flexible scheduling: This benefit is gaining popularity as more jobs shift to remote arrangements. This flexibility allows people to adjust their work plans around other responsibilities.
- Chronic care management opportunities: Many people live with chronic conditions that can be challenging to cover with standard healthcare plans. Benefits specifically designed for chronic care can be a helpful offering for several employees.
- Mental health care options: Therapy reimbursements and mental health resources are growing popular to support health beyond physical needs.
Employee Wellness Goes Beyond Physical Health
Mental health is just as essential to the conversation about health and well-being benefits. With our fast-paced lives and often busy work schedules, feelings of anxiety and burnout are commonplace. A Deloitte survey revealed that 77% of professionals have experienced burnout at their current jobs.
Ongoing stress extensively affects physical health, linking physical and mental wellness. Colds, aches and pains, stomach upset, and more can be physical manifestations of stress, and it’s common for employees to use their healthcare plans to cover care in these circumstances. To truly address healthcare needs with a personalized approach, reimbursements or counseling funds are a must to support your team’s overall well-being. A commitment to mental healthcare proves your long-term investment in your employees.
Need help with enrollment, payroll integration, and day‑to‑day administration? Our human resource outsourcing can streamline benefits delivery.
Tips for Personalizing Benefits and ROI
You can follow a few tips to maximize your return on investment (ROI) for personalized benefits. When you implement these benefits, you should:
- Maintain variety: In a survey on employee benefits, 78% of participants stressed the importance of benefits and the desire for more variety. You may offer a variety of healthcare plans and insurance options, but you may also find variety in the types of benefits you offer. Supporting employees with flexible spending accounts, mental health benefits, and more allows them to address their unique needs.
- Survey employees: Surveys are an excellent way to receive feedback directly from your team. You can use these surveys to get anonymous thoughts about current benefits packages and where they may need more work. Distributing surveys regularly on benefits can help you understand when your employees receive changes well.
- Keep an open dialogue: Employees that stay with your company for the long term will experience shifts in their needs and values as their lives change. Creating a supportive and open environment for discussing benefits can give employees the confidence to express their needs. These ongoing conversations can inform your benefits strategy moving forward.
Following these tips can help you reduce the costs of benefits that no longer represent the needs of your team. Additionally, the benefits that you select will contribute to employee satisfaction, which can increase retention, improve productivity, and reduce onboarding costs.
How To Roll Out an Employee Benefits Package
When you’ve decided to introduce personalized benefits, treating the rollout process with care is vital. Changing too many offerings at once can overwhelm your team and prevent them from leveraging all that’s available. It’s wise to start small when recreating benefits packages.
Keeping it small to start is also valuable for controlling costs. Some benefits — for example, adoption and surrogacy benefits — can come with mounting costs, and your company may not be prepared for the associated expenses. Working with an experienced benefits consultant at BMB can help your team address budgeting concerns and decide which benefits provide the most value to employees at an affordable cost to the company.
As with any installation of new benefit offerings, it is critical to keep your employees educated and up to date on their options, not only during open enrollment, but throughout the plan year. We have customizable employee benefits content that you can distribute to your employees, post in the lunchroom, or use as talking points during your next meeting. You can have the best benefit package in your industry, but if your employees aren’t consistently educated on it, you could overspend on underutilized perks.
Ultimately, when your employees are secure and happy, you have the foundation to drive better business outcomes. Personalized benefits are mutually advantageous to employees and employers.
Work With Us for Personalized Employee Benefits
At Bowen, Miclette & Britt, we know how to design an employee benefits program that aligns with your budgeting requirements and the demand for personalization. Work with our Houston consultants to optimize your plan. Ready to tailor plan design, funding, and compliance support to your workforce? Explore our employee benefits solutions.
