Dive Brief:
- Offering valuable, desirable benefits that meet employee and company goals while controlling costs simultaneously is a balancing act that employers dread. But, according to a new report, employers can manage those priorities by building a benefit platform that considers how specific offerings can work together.
- Released on Thursday by Prudential Financial, Inc., the new report, “Insights for Optimizing Your Employee Benefit Program,” offers specific insights and suggestions about linkages among different benefit offerings and overall outcomes.
- The reports says employers need better ways to foster employee commitment and productivity through a well-designed benefit strategy, and that requires using the right combination of retirement and protection benefits. Most of all, a successful benefit strategy must utilize data analytics to balance attractive benefits while keeping costs at bay.
Dive Insight:
Prudential reports that the right plan designs and the mix of benefits can help drive how employees prepare for retirement, manage health care costs, or protect themselves financially in case of a disability, while helping employers maintain efficiency and productivity for their businesses—all within a given budget.
And striking the right balance across benefits — such as retirement, disability, critical illness or accident insurance — supports financial wellness and worker productivity. For example, disability plans with lower benefit amounts may not provide enough financial protection and could force employees to stop 401(k) contributions or take loans from retirement savings to pay for health care and living expenses. Meanwhile, disability plans offering higher benefit amounts could encourage employees to stay out of work longer than they should.
In short, details matter. The more employers understand how plan design affects employee behaviors, the better positioned they are to ensure their plans are aligned with objectives that serve employee and business needs.