America's Benefit Specialist November 2022

NOTEWORTHY

for meals, cleaning services, trash pickup or water treatments. Technology companies are big spenders when it comes to buying employees meals, spending on average $123/ month on the popular perk. This compared to healthcare companies, which are spending on average $25/month on food perks. Rise in experiential perks to meet prefer ences of Gen Y and Gen Z: Some companies provide entertainment or cultural experi ence benefits to help pay for podcasts, music streaming services, concert or theater tick ets. This perk is particularly popular among tech companies, which pay on average $44/ month on this benefit. Other unique benefits that are particularly appealing to this demo graphic include travel benefits for employees to spend on personal vacations and rental homes or one-time rewards to celebrate new hires, birthdays or work anniversaries. Small businesses face pressure to match benefits of larger companies: The study found that while the dollar amount may be less, small businesses were by and large offering the same benefits as large and medi um-size businesses. “I think there’s an expectation from younger generations for more than just the traditional core offerings. They really want flexibility and choice, and they want their employer to meet them where they’re at. When you want high-performing employees, you need to make it easy for them to access the support they need, when they need it. I think it’s a generational shift and change from coming out of the pandemic; people are much more aware of and more vocal about their well-being,” said Kelly Wakefield, senior manager of global benefits at Moderna. To access the full report, visit: www.get benepass.com/ebooks/2022-benepass-bene fits-benchmarking-guide. REMOTE WORKERS STRUGGLE MOST WITH BENEFITS SELECTION While the majority of today’s workforce prefers remote work over going to the office, MetLife’s annual open-enrollment survey

Across all company sizes, and industries, the most popular types of perks are fitness and wellness, lifestyle spending accounts (LSAs) and work from home. On average, large companies are spending $177/month, medium-sized companies spending $108/ month, and small companies spending $67/ month on fitness and wellness benefits alone. Technology and healthcare organizations are both big spenders when it comes to fitness and wellness benefits, with technology com panies spending on average $111/monthly and healthcare organizations spending $117/ monthly on these perks. Lifestyle spending accounts are empow ering companies to expand the concept of wellness. LSAs, a relatively new benefit in the market, are non-salaried allowances that enable employees to choose how to best sup port their work-life balance and well-being. LSAs are fully funded by the employer and were developed on the basis that flexible, employee-led benefits lead to happier, more productive employees. The report found LSAs to be the second-most-popular perk among all companies, with 37% of compa nies offering it and providing an average of $171 in flexible monthly funds. Given the newness of this perk, many companies also struggle to design the core eligible spend ing categories. While traditional wellness pillars such as fitness, nutrition and mental health made up the bulk of eligible spending categories, the inherent flexibility of LSA ac counts has empowered companies to expand their well-being support to include spas, food, pet care, travel and vacation, profes sional development, tuition reimbursement and parental support. WFH perks remain popular and go well beyond buying a desk: Regardless of benchmark segment or industry, many employers provide $500 to $1,000 in work from-home benefits, which allows employ ees to purchase high-cost items like a new desk or office chair. With the continued trend toward WFH, the report saw increas ing creativity on the part of employers to support employees at home including paying

found location may impact much more than just the daily commute. The survey found that over half of the remote workforce (55%) are highly anxious about their finances (vs. 46% of hybrid and on-site workers) and that this group spends more time worrying about their benefits (55% spent over one hour per week vs. just 37% of on-site and hybrid employees). “Benefits play a major yet often over looked role in employees’ overall financial health. A lack of understanding of benefit options is only compounding the finan cial insecurity remote workers feel today,” said Bradd Chignoli, senior vice president, Group Benefits at MetLife. “Benefits can provide financial stability in times of eco nomic turbulence and, when used the right way, are a tool that can even lighten employ ees’ financial burdens and anxiety.” As the workforce continues to change post-pandemic, meeting employees’ diverse needs—including location—is a growing chal lenge. MetLife’s survey indicates potential gaps in communication to the remote workforce. Two-thirds of remote workers (65%) say that a better understanding of open enrollment would help make them feel more financially secure. Potential gaps exist in benefit education for these employees. Con sequently, remote employees are two times more likely to say they enrolled in the wrong type of benefits last year, and require more information to make the right benefit choices (57% vs. 47% of hybrid and on-site workers). MetLife’s data also finds that employ ees who understand and actively utilize their benefits are more loyal, thus proving beneficial for employee retention. Three in five fully remote workers (61%) say their employer’s benefits are a significant part of what’s keeping them at their company, and this is even higher for work-from-home caregivers with children under 18 (72%) and Millennial/Gen Z workers (67%). The state of an employee’s financial well-be ing is often directly linked to their benefits usage. In fact, 43% of all employees say their benefits have helped them out of financial dif-

6 ABS | benefitspecialistmagazine.com