How to Use Employee Benefits Solutions to Attract and Retain Top Talent

Your organization has made sure to go above-and-beyond basic compensation to deliver a truly competitive benefits package. Now comes the tricky part – getting employees to engage.

Employees want better benefits. 43 percent of employees who quit a job during 2021 cited poor benefits as a reason they left. But research also reveals that 54 percent of Millennial employees – and 35 percent across other age groups – don’t understand the benefits they’re signing up for, much less how to take full advantage of those offered. This lack of understanding results in under-utilized benefits and lowered rates of employee satisfaction as they lack the feeling of support that better workforce advantages are supposed to provide. 

The message these statistics send to organizations is this: the best benefits package in your industry will mean very little if it’s not delivering meaningful results to your workforce.

A purpose-built employee benefits solution can help. High-quality employee benefits platforms will not only bring desirable and supportive workplace advantages, but also provide the support your employees need to reach critical personal goals – uplifting and driving organizational objectives while they do so. 

Let’s dive in.

What’s not working

Benefits can fall to the wayside when companies fail to recognize their strategic potential. Employee benefits are often held within a silo as nice-to-have perks for the engaged workforce, rather than potential drivers of change and advancement for and within the company itself. 

This lack of prioritization often means that inadequate resources will be allocated to the administration of benefits – HR personnel are often kept busy simply managing benefits functions, leaving little space for them to offer their expertise to help answer employee questions, guide them through benefits decisions, etc. 

The result is a slow, confusing, and cumbersome experience for an employee base who is likely to disengage from the process. This means a greater expense of time, money, and energy for all involved as staff work to manage both the benefits tool itself, and the expectations of the workforce. Not to mention that the company itself will lose out on any growth potential which may have otherwise been generated from higher benefit utilization.

So, changing how we think about and prioritize employee benefits is a critical first step to bolstering employee interest and satisfaction within the workforce. But this mindset must receive concrete support in the form of purpose-built administrative tools.

And that’s where a benefits solution comes into play.   

The benefits of a benefits solution

Let’s take a step back for a moment and go over one employee benefits solution definition.

Employee benefits solutions are results-driven products typically built around one type of employee workplace advantage. They either provide a unique company-designed offering, or they can act as a platform to any number of external benefits. Examples of employee benefits solution types include healthcare, financial wellness, and workforce education, among others.

These digital appliances function as an easy platform for program administration on the managerial end, while giving employee users more direct access to and control over their benefit(s). 

Many solutions include a myriad of self-help tools so employees can get questions answered and better understand and manage their benefits on their own before ever contacting a member of the benefits team. And when they do, streamlined or automated administrative tooling means that more humans will be available to offer support.

For organizations seeking to use benefits as a strategic tool to drive business goals, a benefits solution offers a more convenient method with which to generate your ideal results. 

For example, you might be utilizing a financial wellness benefit to reduce employee stress levels and bolster attendance rates. 

• A purpose-built financial wellness solution allows the HR team to more easily correlate a positive shift in attendance with an increase in employee benefits engagement via data gathered within the solution. 

• If a negative correlation is revealed, this allows the team to act quickly to address problems as they arise.  

• On the employee side, a user-friendly solution inspires greater engagement with the benefit itself. Higher benefit engagement means a higher benefit ROI, and a higher likelihood the benefit will provide a palpable business impact.

How to leverage a benefits solution for better retention

Offering a robust total compensation package is step 1 in improving employee retention and attracting new talent to your company. 60 percent of employees in one survey stated that benefits are a key factor in deciding whether or not to accept a new role, and 80 percent prefer an increase in benefit value to a traditional pay raise. Offering both is a critical factor to maintaining a happy, healthy and talented workforce in the modern world, and an intelligent benefits solution can make the task of administering those advantages a little easier.

So, the path to better retention and talent attraction begins by offering a better benefits package. And engaging benefits solutions will help employees to get the most out of those benefits with easier navigation, accessibility, and understanding. And your team can track user engagement to support your statistics, or act quickly when a problem pops up to continue ensuring a smooth and enjoyable user experience. 

What’s next for employee benefits solutions?

Origin is one financial benefits solution offering myriad value to end-user employees. Our easy-to-navigate platform helps employees make sense of their finances – from savings and investments, to pay and benefits – so they can better learn how to manage their money and build wealth and wellness over the course of their tenure with your company.

The Origin product aims to engage employees so you can harvest a better return on your investment. Learn more about what Origin can do for your company: Use Origin.