More employers are shifting their wellbeing strategies towards preventing people from becoming sick in the first place. By using a digital front door to signpost employees to relevant support, you can help to boost wellbeing outcomes, says Guy Clarkson.
Instead of waiting until employees get sick, a preventative wellbeing strategy that helps to keep people healthy is 3-4 times more cost-effective than investing in treatment.
However, just 65% of employees know where to find information about their benefits, and 80% do not fully utilise the benefits on offer.
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Critical to transforming this situation is not only centralising and curating benefits but introducing a digital front door to make it easy for employees to access all their benefits in one place.
Not only can this increase engagement with preventative benefits, but it can also boost wellbeing.
According to Mercer Marsh Benefits, 80% of employees with access to benefits technology say they are ‘thriving’ compared to 54% of those without.
Other benefits associated with digitising access to wellbeing benefits include an improved ability to signpost employees towards preventative support and better opportunities to communicate and enhance what’s available, without driving up costs.
Signposting support
Without proper curation, information about wellbeing benefits can become buried in emails, joiner packs and the company intranet.
By using technology to centralise and digitise employee benefits, employers can not only make support easier to find, but also signpost employees towards preventative benefits.
For example, instead of someone waiting until they become too sick to work with a musculoskeletal (MSK) issue before offering support, can the employee be signposted towards a physiotherapy helpline, to nip MSK problems in the bud earlier?
Or if they’re struggling with their mental health, can they be encouraged to use the pre-paid counselling available via an employee assistance programme before they are unable to work, triggering an income protection claim?
Not only does proactively promoting employee wellbeing in this way help to contain costs, but it can also make employees feel more cared about.
Eight out of ten (82%) employees who have access to benefits technology say their employer cares about their health and wellbeing, compared to just one in two (56%) of those without a digital experience.
Hyper-personalisation
Employers have increased choice in the past by introducing flexible benefits that allow employees to choose between different benefits.
For example, dental, optical, physiotherapy or cycle to work schemes. However, the time taken to administer individual benefits can restrict the choice on offer because of the time taken to process selections.
By introducing employee benefits technology, employers have the opportunity to hyper-personalise wellbeing benefits.
This could involve introducing a wellbeing fund that reimburses employees for doing whatever they think will best support their wellbeing, be this rock-climbing, mindfulness or ballroom dancing.
By recognising that different people have different needs and wellbeing priorities, instead of offering everyone the same gym membership or healthcare policy, you can dramatically increase engagement with wellbeing benefits.
More than three-quarters (78%) of employees who have access to personalised benefits say these meet their needs, compared to 56% of those without.
Clear communication
A frequent outcome of introducing a digital front door to employee benefits is gratitude from employees for the ‘new’ benefits package when this was just their existing package.
All too often, these are benefits employees have always had access to, but because they hadn’t been promoted since the employees joined, they perceive them as new.
This highlights how it’s often the way wellbeing benefits are being communicated, rather than the wellbeing strategy itself, that needs improving.
Fortunately, employee benefits technology also allows employees to start receiving targeted communications tailored to their needs.
This could be a menopause benefit tailored by gender and age or an advanced cancer screening benefit for those employees at most risk.
By recognising that different people have different needs and wellbeing priorities… you can dramatically increase engagement.”
Many wellbeing providers also now offer additional services, information and apps that could be of great use to employees.
Individuals might not have been aware that they were entitled to free private GP appointments with their private medical insurance, for example, or aware that financial wellbeing support could also be utilised by their partner.
By using benefits technology to consolidate all this fragmented information behind your digital front door, you can make sure employees are aware of everything they’re entitled to.
This can help to boost employee wellbeing, without having to spend more on benefits.
As technological advancements continue, we can also expect to see AI being increasingly used to interpret analytics and signpost employees to support via chatbots and automated campaigns, based on hard data and analytics.
For example, by automatically letting employees know about new benefits they might be entitled to after a significant life event, be this an illness or the birth of a new child.
All of which means it’s important to get the right foundation in place, by centralising benefits, so wellbeing communications can be personalised even more in future.
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