Key Benefits Strategies To Boost Employee Wellbeing

One outcome of the current economic uncertainty is the budget cuts, especially related to employee benefits. However, this can lead to the loss of valuable talent, as the current economic stress affects employee health. Shira Wilensky, national practice leader, Health & Wellbeing, OneDigital, discusses a few strategies that help maximize employee well-being and contain costs.

While organizations are tasked with reigning in spending to prepare for looming economic uncertainty, one thing is certain –  leaders will have to find a way to take care of their people to sustain business performance. Amidst budget cuts and potential reduced revenue, the last thing businesses can handle is unnecessary turnover costs and decreased productivity, not to mention the persistent scarcity of qualified replacements. In the past, to cinch spending meant eliminating employee perks and benefits — everything from free lunches to commuter benefits — but employers today recognize the importance of taking care of their most valuable investment, their people. Employers cannot afford to let these highly valued employee benefits disappear at the risk of their employees disappearing too.

Financial turbulence tremendously impacts employees, from employment instability to increasing costs, everything from healthcare to groceries. Not only does this impact their pocketbook, but financial stress is detrimental to both mental and physical health. 

Mainstream news is blanketed with statistics indicating finances are the number one culprit of stress amongst Americans, like: “63% of workersOpens a new window feel their financial stress has increased over the past year”, “Nearly a third of Americans deferred personal medical care due to cost concerns this year,” “72% of employees experienced financial stress this year”, and “59% of workers aged 18-34 reported living paycheck to paycheck this year.” 

The result of experiencing stress? Poor physical health. Employees worried about paying bills are more likely to delay necessary medical care, exacerbating physical health. Stress by itself impacts sleep, blood pressure, and headaches and causes more susceptibility to illness. The relationship between mental, physical, and financial well-being is a vicious, causal cycle where each is a direct and indirect product of one other.

At a time when employers are without extra resources, tackling employee well-being might seem impossible, especially when there are so many challenges to solve. But a few core strategies can help maximize employee well-being and help employers contain costs. 

Maximize Existing Benefits

The first opportunity is to extract more value out of solutions you already have in place. Solutions only bring value if employees use them and appreciate them. Often, the most significant barrier to current solutions generating success is that employees need to be aware of existing benefits, or they seem tedious to access. Evaluate your existing communications plan to assess the following:

1. Are all of our benefits and resources explained in one place?
2. Does my communication strategy extend outside of open enrollment to include year-round reminders?
3. Do we have multiple modalities in place to cater to the diversity of our workforce (text, email, printed, video, podcast, etc.)?
4. Are we using creative ways to educate employees on the value of our benefits in a way that is meaningful to employees?
5. Is our messaging concise, easy to understand, and helpful enough to tackle health literacy?

Another way to gain more value from existing benefits and resources is to implement a care navigation solution. Care Navigation, also referred to as Care Coordination or Concierge Care, optimizes enterprise healthcare spending by guiding employees to the highest-quality, most cost-effective care while improving healthcare costs for employers. The solution immediately brings value through personalized and clinical employee guidance, empowering smarter healthcare consumerism and navigating employees to programs already in place. 

Many of the options in the marketplace are technology focused, including an AI component that engages employees through an app with a chatbot feature. The easy access and immediate response generate high utilization, but we find the human option a nice touch. Rightway offers innovative technology, and whether a member dials in or uses the app, their first encounter is always with a live, in-person clinician. Not all navigation solutions offer clinical decision support, but the feature aids in building employee trust and results in more effective steerage. 

The concierge feature of care navigation often yields more timely care and better compliance with preventive care and managing chronic conditions. Employees might otherwise delay seeking out a provider in-network, but the simplicity of using these solutions when employees need help finding a provider, interpreting a bill, or finding alternative treatment options is why we find care navigation effective. As an added bonus, once employees seek help, they can also be triaged or notified of other relevant programs and resources. 

For example, an employee searching for a mental health provider can be directed to an employer-sponsored EAP or a company-sponsored mental health program. A member finding out about coverage of an upcoming addition to their family can be pointed to a maternity management solution or childcare benefits. 

See More: 4 Ways to Enhance Employee Wellbeing Through Recognition

Point Your Employees in the Right Direction

The next strategy for boosting employee well-being is steering employees toward the benefits that are right for them. When thinking about supporting physical, mental, and financial well-being, one common thread leads to success: a personalized approach. Every workforce has a unique set of demographics, job functions, career trajectories, employee pain points, and motivating factors. Furthermore, each employee is managing their well-being differently and has different priorities. While it would be impossible to offer a well-being solution to meet the needs of every employee, custom lifestyle benefit platforms come pretty close. These digital platforms allow an employer to designate a stipend for employees to spend towards meaningful benefits, from weight management coaching to financial savings programs. 

The value to employers is that there is one vendor to manage and one administrative fee, providing the opportunity to cater to their entire workforce. Employers can also set up stipend accounts with parameters to be spent on specific needs such as work from home, fertility and adoption support, or transgender support. 

See More: How to Improve Employee Wellness in Hybrid Settings

Adopt an Individualized, Tech-savvy Approach

Another personalized approach to supporting employee well-being is individual coaching. Employees gain one on one support based on their specific needs and aspirations. Individual financial planning has become a highly sought-after benefit, most commonly designed to promote physical well-being through nutrition or chronic condition management. Whether employees are trying to save more for retirement, pay off debt, or buy a house, the accountability of a personal coach is highly effective and valued by employees. The most successful solutions pair individual coaching with slick technology platforms that assist employees in organizing and tracking their progress toward their financial objectives. OneDigital recently invested in its own personal financial planning platform and paired with experts to coach employees through the process of managing their financial well-being. 

For employers who cannot squeeze any additional investments into the budget for 2023, do not underestimate the value and impact of focusing on your policies, environment, and culture. Employees can benefit financially from policies such as flexible schedules and maternity/paternity leave. Mental health can be improved by an environment that encourages employees to unplug from emails after hours and on vacation. 

Many might argue where to draw the line regarding employers’ responsibility to take care of employee wellbeing. But the more employers invest in their people, the more loyalty and better performance they are likely to get out of their people. 

What steps have you taken to maximize your employees’ well-being while controlling costs in these uncertain times? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .

Image Source: Shutterstock

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