More than half of employees say the benefits package offered to them does not meet their needs, highlighting the need for employers to give workers flexibility over the health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits they provide.
Health and wellbeing benefits
This is according to the Willis Towers Watson Global Benefits Attitudes Survey, which found only 48% of employees were satisfied with their benefits package.
Only one in five (19%) employees who were dissatisfied with their benefits package were highly engaged at work.
“Engagement deficit has become a major management concern over recent years, impacting business productivity and profitability,” said Mark Ramsook, senior director at Willis Towers Watson Health and Benefits.
“A premium benefits package may not be the silver bullet for employee engagement, but it is clear from this research that meagre, uncompetitive or inadequately tailored benefits provision can play a significant role in disengaging a workforce.”
He said the increasing diversity among the workforce and their health and wellbeing needs meant a one-size-fits-all approach to benefit programme design “is rarely an appropriate strategy”.
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“Employees invariably have different pain points along with disparate health, wealth and lifestyle requirements. This calls for dedicated tools that support greater personalisation, freedom of choice and control over their benefits portfolio,” added Ramsook.
More than half (54%) wanted a single online platform that would allow them to manage their benefits, while 36% wanted access to online materials that would help them make decisions about what options were available to them. Almost two-thirds of workers wanted to be able to talk through their options one-to-one with an expert, to help them make complex benefits decisions.
