What Employees Actually Want from Their Benefits in 2024

Learn how to increase employee engagement through care direction and cost transparency.

It’s 2024 and your company has set sail to navigate through the waters of employee benefits once more. Have you noticed? The journey before you isn’t the same as past voyages. Employees today are demanding more than just a paycheck from their jobs.

They want a workplace that provides a holistic approach to their well-being, including a comprehensive benefits package that caters to a diverse set of needs, a progressive work-life balance, financial stability, personal growth options, and more.

In this blog article, we’ll provide you with an accurate map and compass for your expedition. We'll tell you what you need to build a comprehensive benefits package that will cater to a more diverse set of needs than ever before. Bon voyage!

One Size Does Not Fit All For Employee Benefits

It’s important to understand that a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer sufficient for employees in 2024. It’s vital to include diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to ensure the success of your benefits package.

Your DEI efforts should include, but not be limited to, such initiatives as providing a flexible holiday structure, broadening your preferred providers to ensure bilingual inclusivity, and removing exclusive terminology from benefit policies such as parental leave & family-building benefits. This is to ensure that your benefits package is meeting the needs of every employee in your company.

It’s also important to consider the benefits that each generation of employees is looking for. For instance, employees belonging to the Baby Boomers generation may want long-term care insurance, Gen X employees want supplemental insurance, Millennials want low-cost & high-quality healthcare, and Gen Z is looking for telemedicine programs with virtual mental health counseling. By looking at and tending to what each generation of employees wants, you’re ensuring the success of your company’s comprehensive benefits plan.

Empower Your Employees Through Benefits Education

Almost as important as offering the right benefits is providing the right education & guidance so your employees can get the most out of the benefits you’re offering them.

You wouldn’t hand your employees any large construction equipment or complicated CRM tools without first training them on how to use them, the idea of benefits education is the same.

It’s important for your employees to know where to go when they need help. For instance, knowing when to use urgent care facilities as opposed to the emergency room can save your employees thousands of dollars.

In addition, providing cost transparency can assist your workforce in making better financially sustainable choices. Employees who understand that there are oftentimes generic prescriptions available, as opposed to their name-brand counterparts, can dramatically reduce their healthcare expenditure over the course of a year.

Educating your employees on their benefits can even help alleviate your HR department by reducing the amount of repetitive questions they receive regarding the care available to them. And the best part is that educating your employees on their benefits doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ll talk a little more about that later.

Benefits that Employees Are Actually Asking For

Now that we’ve laid the foundation for what to keep in mind when selecting what’s in your employee benefits package, here’s a list of what employees actually want from their benefits in 2024.

Mental Health Options

It shouldn’t come as a shock that today’s employees have their mental health on the brain. Supplying benefits that look after your employees’ mental health can greatly increase their overall workplace experience. This type of support can span from having a mental health specialist on staff to providing phone numbers in an easy-to-access location, like your employee experience platform.

Employee Assistance Programs

Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) are an assortment of confidential services that are offered either in or out of house to employees and are designed to support a wide range of challenges they face in everyday life. EAPs often provide counseling and advisement for family situations, professional networking skills, substance abuse & traumatic event recovery, mental wellness support, and more.

Flexible Work Options

Allowing your employees the flexibility to work without the constraints of traditional work schedules and environments can improve employee productivity, job satisfaction, and overall happiness. There are many different paths to creating a more flexible workplace including flex time, compressed workweeks, annualized hours, and remote or hybrid work-from-home options.

Health Savings Account

Providing a Health Savings Account (HSA) is an easy way for employers to help grow wealth for their employees. HSAs allow employees to put a portion of their income away into the savings account without it being taxed, then they can use their HSA towards qualified healthcare expenses while also avoiding typical sales taxes. In addition, when this HSA isn’t being used for healthcare purposes, the employees can invest their funds to earn money tax-free.

Unlimited PTO

Unlimited PTO might make some companies apprehensive, but adding this benefit could be just what your company needs to secure the highly skilled workforce you seek. Under an unlimited PTO policy, employees can take off as much time as they need to ensure a healthy work-life balance regardless of age, location, lifestyle, and unexpected events.

Besides having a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce, companies can also experience other improvements after adopting an unlimited PTO policy. For starters, companies can save money by not paying out vacation days at the end of each year. They’re also apt to experience a reduction in their HR department’s workload by not having to track or respond to employee PTO requests.

Family Forming & Care

Family-forming & care benefits encompass a wide range of benefit options to choose from. This can include adoption assistance, assisted reproductive technologies, donor-assisted reproduction, childcare, adult day care, paid parental leave, academic planning for employee children, and more.

Lifestyle Spending Accounts

Lifestyle spending accounts (LSA) are a fun way for companies to promote employee engagement by setting aside money for employees to make both physically and mentally healthy choices. LSAs allow employees to spend their extra money on a broad range of purchases, most often including gym memberships, nutritional coaching, healthy meals, personal & professional development courses, and more.

Employee Advocacy

Employee healthcare advocacy is a benefit that many companies are now rolling out for their workforce. Employee advocacy services help employees make better healthcare decisions by providing the information and support they need to get the highest quality of care at the lowest price.

Pet Insurance

One of the more recent developments in the world of employee benefits is the inclusion of pet insurance. By offering your employees pet insurance, you can help reduce your employees’ financial stress, ensure your employees feel a sense of belonging at your company, and give you a competitive edge when hiring.

This could also sway many of your employees to adopt a pet. According to the CDC, having a pet at home has been shown to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol & triglyceride levels, feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD.

COBRA

Finally, if the time comes for an employee to leave your organization, providing a continuation of healthcare coverage can greatly alleviate stress among employees. This coverage is typically between 18-36 months and allows flexibility for your employees during unexpected life events. In an ideal world, nobody would have to use this insurance, but a potentially high-value employee who knows your company offers this benefit may feel more comfortable joining your team than someone else’s who doesn’t offer COBRA.

Pulse Checks

Of course, our list here is quite great, phenomenal even, but nothing is better than hearing what your own company's employees actually want. That’s where pulse checks come in.

This often comes in the form of company-wide surveys, but it can also take the shape of interactive quizzes, suggestion boxes, A/B testing, data analytics, and metric tracking. In the end, listening to your own employees’ feedback is going to provide you with the most accurate answers you need to bolster your employee benefits package.

Final Thoughts on What Employees Actually Want from Their Benefits in 2024

Today’s employees are looking for more than just a paycheck at the end of the day from their jobs. They’re desiring their workplace to provide a holistic approach to their wellbeing. This human-centric approach should include a comprehensive benefits package that caters to a diverse set of needs, a progressive work-life balance, financial stability, and personal growth options.