Well-Being Benefits: 5 Ways to Get Employees to Maximize Their Use

You have great well-being benefits. So why don’t employees use them to the max?

Nearly 80% of employees have access to well-being benefits, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And those benefits run the game — physical, mental, social and financial — but employees aren’t necessarily using them.

For certain, physical health benefits are widely used.

But just 38% of employees used the resources available to them to improve their mental well-being, according to research from EBRI. And researchers found in a separate study that just 45% of employees participated in financial well-being programs when offered.

Getting Employees to Use Well-Being Benefits

So the challenge remains to get employees to use and thrive from your well-being benefits.

Here are five strategies to help.

1. Get Better Aligned

Employees don’t necessarily think they have bad well-being benefits. Many just don’t think they have good well-being benefits for them.

Forty-five percent of employees say a more personalized approach to well-being and rewards would make a difference in their participation, according to the Mercer Global Talent Trends study.

“Personalization is not just about salaries and bonuses,” the Mercer researchers noted. “This year, 46% of employees said they would be willing to forgo a 10% pay increase in exchange for additional well-being benefits.”

So try to offer more choices. Most organizations provide five or fewer well-being programs. The key is to find and offer the right programs. That starts (and ends) with surveying employees.

But don’t expect them to tell you what they want or need. They often don’t know the possibilities for new or expanded benefits. Give them examples or samples of what you can provide. Ask them to rate how likely they would be to use those.

2. Take a Holistic Approach

Employees have differing views of well-being. What’s important to Judy in Sales is probably not the top priority for Carl in Quality.

But if you address and offer benefits in the four most critical elements to well-being, you will likely provide something that works for everyone.

Here are more details on the well-being factors you want to address:

• Physical: To improve physical well-being, many companies added or enhanced online and virtual medical services in recent years. There’s an app for practically everything. Plus, telehealth is growing by leaps and bounds.
• Mental: This is another critical area to offer virtual and online services.
• Financial: Employees’ paychecks are just the starting point. You can help employees by adding or enhancing financial well-being benefits. Try to offer programs on savings, budgeting, loans and debt counseling.
• Social: Many employees want opportunities to improve their social well-being, and companies can help by providing time and resources for volunteer opportunities, peer recognition and charitable donations.

3. Reward Usage

Many employees don’t access well-being benefits because they don’t know exactly what’s available. A robust plan to regularly promote the benefits and how to access them helps.

But finance can help more by offering rewards. Reward employees for trying and using your well-being benefits. Give them tools to learn more about what you offer at their convenience. Then give incentives for using them – such as discounts for gym memberships, reduced insurance rates for regular checkups, rewards for accessing online meditation, etc.

4. Find Champions

Some employees are happy with your well-being offerings. They’ve at least tried almost all of them. They likely stuck with what they loved and dropped what they didn’t. You can likely mine your usage data to find those super-users.

Make these employees your allies in promoting well-being. Ask them to informally or formally talk about experiences they’re willing to share with colleagues.

Get Feedback

Rely on regular employee feedback to find out what’s working, what isn’t and how you can increase benefits usage. Survey with questions such as:

• What well-being benefits are you aware of?
• Which well-being benefits do you use?
• Can you rate each well-being benefit on a scale of 1-10?
• How can we help with your well-being?
• What well-being benefits do you know of at other companies that you’d recommend we try?
• How can we help you access our well-being benefits?