Summary: HR professionals and benefit managers share how they’re mixing up their employee benefits in 2023 to stay competitive and meet the needs of their changing workforce.
Angela Davison, a human resources benefit manager, said: “It’s time to shake up the benefits plan. Not your standard health, dental, vision, and life, long-term disability. Thinking out of the box because most places offer those types of benefits.”
“But to attract and retain talent in today’s day and age, we need things that go “Oh, I haven’t seen this offered before.”
Here’s what Angela and other benefit experts shared about their plans for employee benefits in 2023.
Offering More Employee Benefits
Benefit managers talked about offering their employees more in various ways.
- Paying more: Covering the full premium for medical and vision insurance and increasing their 401k match.
- Providing more choice: Offering more than one choice for core benefits like medical and dental. Adding non-traditional benefits such as pet insurance and elder care.
- Giving the gift of time: Giving employees more time off through PTO and parental leave. “For parental leave, we’re not just looking for our females to have leave options. We’re also looking at our males to be able to … take leave when their significant other has a child,” said Carla Crittendon, a director of compensation, benefits, and wellness.
Changing Insurance Carriers
When talking about changing carriers, cost was the driver. Coltan Bohman, a director of human resources, shared that his company is tackling their specialty pharmacy costs by outsourcing it internationally.
Communicating Benefits in a New Way
One HR guru reminded us that you don’t have to change the benefits you offer to make a difference. You can improve the way you promote your offering by making your benefits more relatable.
Jennifer Sawyer is a senior HR Generalist in the automotive industry. She shared: “We’re all about communication. We communicate all our benefits as cars … If they need a tune up, we talk through what they need to do with their car/benefit to make it work better for their needs at the time.”
2023 Employee Benefits from VSP® ForeSight™ Readers
“We are taking a DEI focus by adding fertility and hearing aid benefits, and increasing our paid parental leave.” – Maria Parsons, US Benefits Administrator, Seattle, WA
“We are looking to expand vision for employees because it is a low-cost way to make their lives a bit easier. 1. Increase the contact and frame allowance to $200 2. Increase the frequency of frames to every 12 months 3. Providing a tiered Lasik benefit. Our hope is this helps families, attracts talent, and provides some help in retention of employees. – Mikelle Carnagey, Benefits Manager, Omaha, NE
VSP ForeSight is a free every-other-month newsletter with a focus on how-to, need-to-know, and what-if discussions with HR and benefit pros. Want to join us? Subscribe now.
