The impact of the lingering recession, combined with skyrocketing health care costs, is leading to a dramatic and rapid shift from standard single-offering Employee Benefits plans to a wide variety of choice-based programs tailored to the needs of businesses and workers alike.
This flexible approach can help employers use benefits as an effective tool for improving employee loyalty and satisfaction. One study by MetLife found that workers who are satisfied with their benefits program were nearly three times more likely than their dissatisfied counterparts to express a strong sense of loyalty to the employer.
Although the recession has impacted nearly all workers; their financial and benefit needs, views, and priorities differ significantly based on age, behavior, and lifestyle. To remedy the inflexibility of traditional single-offering benefits packages, employers need to offer a variety of products and services. The chances are, that your workers are looking for non-medical benefits such as Life, Disability, Dental, Vision, Identity Theft, and Legal Services to round out their Health coverage. However, bear in mind that budget pressures might well mean that the employees who seek expanded benefits will need to pick up some or all of the costs.
As always, we stand ready to offer our advice on helping you reallocate resources in order to offer a benefits program tailored to the needs, and budget, of your workers.