ReportWire

Tag: workplace benefits

  • 3 Strategies to Help Your Small Business Control Spiraling Health Care Costs

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    Health insurance has quietly become one of the most punishing financial pressures facing American entrepreneurs. Individuals feel it searching the ACA marketplace. Small business owners feel it in their payroll budgets. The question has shifted from how to offer better benefits to how much longer coverage is even sustainable.

    I get it. You want to take care of your people. They’ve been loyal, they’ve put in the work, and they deserve the security that comes with decent health coverage. But when premiums are devouring your margins and threatening the sustainability of your entire operation, caring for your team becomes a high-stakes balancing act between compassion and survival. 

    In today’s labor market, health insurance is not a perk. It is the baseline cost of competing for talent. Without it, you limit the quality of people you attract and the ability to keep your strongest performers. Businesses that step away from offering benefits face a different set of expenses. And companies without health coverage see higher turnover, lower productivity, and fewer qualified applicants. The trade association SHRM reports that replacing an employee can cost between up to twice their annual salary, which turns churn into a significant financial hit. When employees skip or delay care because they lack coverage, absenteeism rises, minor issues become major, and operational costs increase. Dropping insurance may lower expenses in the moment, but the long-term costs are often far higher.  

    The numbers tell the story: In California’s private sector, average monthly premiums for family coverage nearly doubled between 2008 and 2023, rising from just over $1,000 to almost $2,000, according to KFF. That climb has continued through 2024 and 2025. This is not just a California issue. It is a national trend. 

    Small employers feel the squeeze most. Companies with 10 to 199 employees lack the buying power of large corporations, so they absorb the increases at full force. Family premiums for small businesses have surged more than 350 percent since 1999. In only the last five years, average family premiums rose from 16,977 in 2020 to $26,054 in 2025.

    The good news is that business owners are not powerless. New models give employers more control, more predictability, and in many cases, better outcomes for employees. Here are the strategies gaining momentum:

    1. Defined contribution plans
    Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, or ICHRAs, allow employers to set a fixed budget and let employees choose their own coverage. You stabilize your costs. They gain flexibility. This is particularly effective for teams spread across several regions or states.

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    Gayle Jennings O’Byrne

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  • Why Gen-Z Is Turning to TikTok for Their Benefits Info

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    The complexity of the U.S. healthcare system is only one reason it’s more important than ever for workers and employers to have a proper handle on workplace benefits. In a rapidly changing labor market, coupled with shifting employee expectations, the right benefits package can be a big motivator for workers, and a draw for highly qualified job applicants. But a new report suggests that many employers may not be adequately explaining their companies’ benefits to their employees. It’s a wakeup call for business onwers to drag their communications into the 21 century and educate people versus the social media platform that are the source of most of their online information.

    According to a new survey from New York-based financial services outfit Equitable, younger members of the workforce are turning to online sources and social media to help them properly understand the workplace benefits they’re offered. You might think “great! Job done…less effort for the HR team!” but the data shows otherwise: some 40 percent of the 1,000 people Equitable surveyed said they didn’t feel confident in understanding the voluntary benefits their employer offered. And while the data show 55 percent of all workers “still rely on HR materials and information sessions from employers to understand their workplace benefits,” 37 percent of Gen-Z have used social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and even YouTube (that great source of “how to” videos) to seek out benefits information — the highest percentage of any generation responding to the survey. Meanwhile, Millennials lead the age groups who use AI for the same info: fully 30 percent say they’ve used AI like this. 

    What’s driving the trend of people trying to figure out benefits on their own? It may be mostly about medical costs in the complex, layered U.S. health system. Equitable’s data show 80 percent of Americans think an unplanned medical expense — like an accident, or a sudden serious illness — could “derail” their long term financial planning. Younger workers are more anxious, with 89 percent of Gen-Z and Millennial workers feeling this way, compared to 65 percent of baby boomers. This could be thanks to the macroeconomic financial disparities between generations, with report after report showing how the boomer generation has money set aside in ways that’re inaccessible to younger generations.

    The amounts of money concerned aren’t that onerous, either: Equitable’s data show that over a quarter of the people who say an unexpected bill could upset their plans pin the financially damaging limit at around $1,000. 

    Why should you care about this? 

    Equitable’s report has a clear reason for you: it notes that a survey of over 500 small to medium-size businesses, nearly every respondent said voluntary workplace benefits are “key to attracting and retaining employees.” And nearly three in four small business owners think these benefits show that they’re caring and committed employers. Reputations like this, a recent report showed, are perhaps more important than they’ve ever been. 

    But the same survey said four in 10 employers said low participation was a barrier for them offering or expanding voluntary benefits. What may be driving this? Overly complex, old-fashioned pamphlets perhaps? Or a benefits education program that’s slightly out of date with current offerings from third party suppliers? 

    The big take-away is that younger workers really are looking for meaningful workplace benefits when they’re choosing which jobs to apply for — and emphasizing those that can benefit their mental health. As Gen-Z joins the workforce in increasing numbers, this is definitely something you need to plan for, lest you may miss out on excellent new talent. 

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    Kit Eaton

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  • Why You Should Let Financially Savvy Female Employees Guide Your Company’s Benefits

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    Perks on the job are usually a nice bonus to have, and can actually help boost performance, as a recent report on offering frontline workers food and work-sponsored outings shows. Other perks hit the headlines for different, sometimes quirky reasons, like the current trend for of Silicon Valley startups letting people go shoeless in the office. Now a new report focuses on how some benefits have a more direct appeal to working women. Its findings could make a difference at your company.

    The most significant finding in the new data shows that women with a high degree of financial literacy are the least satisfied with their company’s benefits programs.

    The data, from Oregon-based insurance and investments provider The Standard, show that three-quarters of women who identify themselves as highly financially aware said employers really need to consider benefits more carefully, including offering caregiving benefits, according to HRDive. More than half of the survey respondents said they should also have different benefits from other members of their household so that their overall needs are met. We can interpret this as meaning that one partner’s job has benefits like flexible hours that line up with the school run, while the other partner’s work offers perks that, for example, offers an end-of-year bonus that will help during the holiday season.

    The report also notes that as women’s wages rise, their confidence in their own financial acumen rises, and this confidence leads to dissatisfaction with company benefits. Higher wages also correlate with “women feeling more limited in their choices for family and career,” the report says. Data, for example, show that for women earning over $200,000, 35 percent admitted to wanting more children but felt they couldn’t afford to expand their families, compared to just 29 percent of women earning under $50,000. Meanwhile, 42 percent of women in the top pay bracket said they’d like to shift their careers, compared to 35 percent of lower-paid women, suggesting that the top earners definitely feel more stuck. 

    Anecdotally, this makes sense: higher wages can be perceived as “golden handcuffs,” and taking time off to have children may impact working women’s household earnings (especially if an employer doesn’t offer family-centric perks). 

    The data also show that women report less confidence in understanding benefits and matters like insurance. That’s important, because two-thirds of women are the primary providers of household-related benefits, and this figure is 72 percent for women making less than $50,000 — the group that also reports the lowest level of financial confidence.

    The report quotes The Standard’s senior vice president for External Affairs, Marketing and Communications, Justin Delany, who outlined why the data is important for companies considering tweaks to their staff benefits packages. “To be most effective at retaining and engaging employees, workplace benefits need to meet the unique needs of different employee populations,” Delaney said, adding that the data show “employers have a significant gap — and opportunity — in meeting the needs of women employees with tailored employee benefits and financial education.”

    The report also points out that tailoring benefits packages for women, as well as benefits education programs to help them better understand what’s on offer, could help people choose their best options. Offering flexible benefits packages, tailored to women workers’ needs, could be key to recruiting and then retaining female staff.

    In March this year, for example, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser landed her company’s benefits system in the spotlight because, unusually among Wall Street firms, she decided to make a concerted effort to support working mothers. While many other industry giants are pushing for strict return-to-office rules, citing vague team-building notions to explain the mandates, Fraser told her staff they’re sticking to the hybrid working model that evolved during the pandemic, allowing most workers to be remote at least two days a week. As well as being what she thinks is truly a “new way of working,” the policy is also extremely family-friendly, and may specifically appeal to working mothers who (as The Standard’s data underlines) typically have more family duties than male workers. 

    What can you take away from this for your company?

    First, if your company offers flexible benefits packages, then you may want to offer, repeat or maybe even rejig an in-house educationaa program explaining the benefits to your staff, particularly since The Standard’s data show women have less confidence in their understanding of these topics.

    Secondly, you have an opportunity to carefully tailor your benefits packages to appeal to female staff — particularly your higher-paid workers. Offering suitable benefits could act as a competitive advantage in the job market, and you could attract talented workers who’d perhaps balk at rival firms’ less-promising benefits packages. It may even help you retain your most valuable female workers for the long term.

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    Kit Eaton

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