The data insights businesses need to improve their employee benefits
Employee benefits constitute one of the most significant investments businesses can make in their people.
However, the most powerful tool for improving benefits provision – data – will often sit untouched in provider portals, spreadsheets or HR systems.
This data represents a goldmine of intelligence, particularly for employers who are under pressure to improve wellbeing, talent retention rates, business performance and productivity.
One of the easiest ways for employers to unlock this intelligence is through a benefits platform. Modern platforms pull data together in one place, giving employers a clear view of how their benefits are performing.
Most benefits will generate a wealth of insights into employees’ needs and how effectively those needs are being met, from claims trends, absence behaviours and demographic data to screening outcomes, financial wellbeing activity and employee engagement information from benefits portals.
When this information is pulled together and analysed, it can underpin far more strategic and evidence-based benefits provision. Benefits platforms can make this easier by consolidating it, helping employers to see the full picture, rather than isolated snapshots.
Here we consider how employers, irrespective of the size of their in-house resources, can harness and use benefits data more effectively.
Why benefits data matters
Employees today are increasingly demanding benefits that are accessible and relevant to their personal circumstances.
Businesses, meanwhile, need benefits to strengthen their employee value proposition, whilst, at the same time, boosting employee engagement, supporting wellbeing and reducing absence rates.
Data insights can help employers meet these goals. It can help them to understand which benefits are working well, where gaps exist and where investment are likely to have the most impact.
PMI claims, for example, might highlight a trend in musculoskeletal issues, the use of EAPs may be an indicator of rising levels of financial stress or absence reports may shine a spotlight on the departments that are under the most pressure.
Engagement data from a benefits portal can reveal which benefits are resonating and which aren’t, while pension opt-out data might reveal gaps in financial literacy among younger employees.
Many businesses will have access such information without realising it and they can use it to make more informed decisions.
Understanding what your benefits data is telling you
Different benefits can offer different kinds of insights.
Healthcare data, for example, can help to highlight what is driving claims or delays in treatment. Wellbeing engagement data can be an indicator of benefits awareness and relevance.
Group protection data can help to identify what might be causing long-term absence or the impact of early intervention.
Occupational health data, meanwhile, can help to explain recurring absence patterns while pensions data can offer helpful insights into the financial behaviour of employees at different stages of their life.
Taken in isolation, this data can be useful, but when collated and analysed together, it can paint and even richer picture.
A review of PMI utilisation data, for example, might show that musculoskeletal and stress-related claims are increasing year-on-year.
At face value, this might suggest a need for improving clinical pathways but when cross-referenced with absence data, it might reveal that the same conditions are responsible for a significant proportion of long-term sickness incidents.
Further analysis of employee survey data might then reveal that staff are complaining of workload pressures and physical pain that is linked to their jobs, highlighting a wellbeing issue that calls for a more targeted, multi-layered response.
In a similar vein, a rising number of stress-related group income protection referrals, combined with longer than average absence incidents, could indicate that employees are struggling long before they reach the point of making a claim.
Such insights give employers the chance to intervene earlier than they might otherwise do, by providing extra mental health training for managers, for example, through signposting EAP resources more effectively or through better workload management.
Putting benefits data to work
To help illustrate how data can influence business decisions, here are two hypothetical examples inspired by real-world scenarios.
1. Discovering what remote employees really need
A business with a growing remote workforce examines at its wellbeing and engagement data and notices that attendance at wellbeing workshops among remote employees is lower than among those that are office-based.
The use of virtual GP services and mental health apps, meanwhile, is much higher among remote employees.
Absence records then show that remote employees are experiencing more short, repeated spells of absence, often connected to minor ailments or fatigue, while pulse survey feedback reveals feelings of isolation and a lack of day-to-day support from managers.
Consequently, the employer realises that remote employees need more contact with their managers and clearer guidance on where to find support.
It introduces virtual “check-ins” for managers, wellbeing sessions designed specifically for those that work from home and takes steps to ensure wellbeing communications are easy to access on mobile devices.
Within six months, employee engagement with wellbeing resources increases and incidents of short-term absence are reduced.
2. Revealing gaps in dental and preventative health
A medium-sized business that reviews its cash plan and dental insurance data discovers that uptake of routine dental check-ups is significantly lower than expected.
At the same time, health screening results show that employees in certain age brackets are suffering from an increase in oral health conditions.
When the employer looks more closely at the data from its benefits portal, it finds that many employees either don’t know what their dental cover includes or mistakenly assume it only applies to treatment, rather than preventative care.
By making its communications clearer and illustrating them with everyday examples of what’s included, adding timely reminders and briefing line managers to signpost the benefit, the company starts to see an increase in employees using their dental benefits.
Screening results the following year then show a meaningful improvement.
The role of benefits technology
Benefits platforms can play an important role in helping bring benefits intelligence together in one place, giving employers a clear overview of how benefits are being used, which messages are landing and how different groups of employees are engaging.
This can be particularly helpful for smaller businesses that may not have their own analytics tools, enabling them to more easily surface insights they can act on.
By consolidating data that would otherwise sit across multiple systems, benefits platforms simplify data analysis and allow employers to make better and quicker decisions about where to invest and how to improve their benefits strategy.
The next step for employers
When used effectively, benefits data can become a strategic asset, helping employers to understand what employees really need, better target their benefits spend, prevent issues before they escalate and make their benefits more personal and relevant.
In doing so, employers can turn their benefits provision into a powerful tool for improving employee wellbeing and business performance.