2025 National Benefit Trends Survey

Alright. Good afternoon, everyone. Good morning to those of you on the West Coast.

I wanted to thank you for joining us today at the, presentation of our, survey results for the twenty twenty five national benefit trend survey.

Nick Pierce. I'm the VP of employee benefits and insights and analytics here at McGriff.

And just a little background here on the the survey. We conducted the survey between January and February of this year, gathered about six hundred and sixty responses from, organizations across the country, and various industries, with the goal of understanding the current trends and employee benefits, of this year that are emerging or, continuing on and focusing on key areas like employee retention, cost management, wellness programs, and just in general employer sponsored benefit plan offerings.

We think we've received some, valuable insights that reflect the evolving landscape of employee benefits. And today, we'll plan on diving into the key findings, from the survey.

And without further ado, if you go to the next slide.

And so joining me today, are Janie Warner, our VP of HR advisory national practice, and Katie O'Neil, VP and clinical wellness director of our, national wellness practice. Together, we bring over fifty years of combined experience and employee benefits.

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Alright. One more slide, please.

Let's jump right in, to the key findings of the survey. And first and foremost, one of the most significant, trends that we've observed is the focus on employee retention and engagement continuing on this year.

Fifty three percent of organizations are prioritizing retention and forty percent focusing on engagement strategies.

We think that those engaged employees are likely to be more productive, stay longer with the company, and contribute positively to to the workplace, as a result of, them being engaged, with their, their work and wellness.

And we think that, because of that, retention and engagement are closely linked. When employees feel engaged at work, they feel more fulfilled, in all aspects, of the job and and personally and professionally.

In addition, leadership development was also noted as a top three key focus, this year with forty one percent of organizations investing in initiatives in that space, indicating kind of that that strong recognition of the importance of retaining top talent, in what has been a competitive labor market over the past few years. Investing in things like leadership development can help create that pipeline of talent that's prepared for future organizational success.

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And secondly, you know, key finding was was surrounding cost management strategies.

So we all know, medical plan costs have been rising over the last several years as we came, you know, further and further away from, the COVID nineteen pandemic of of several years ago now, and and that can take many different forms.

Our survey showed that, thirty six percent of organizations are thinking about changing up their partnerships with their medical carrier, PBM, in in the upcoming, renewal cycle, and twenty nine percent are looking at implementing specific cost control programs to help manage the expenses outside of just, switching plan designs.

It could be anything from, wellness initiatives, increasing focus on, like, the telehealth services, adding or promoting consumerism with different high deductible health plans, or continue to evaluate external partnerships like vendor point solutions for disease management or, case specific, type things or even looking at different pharmacy contracting with, alternative pharmacy benefit managers.

You know, so we think that, you know, these organizations are exploring innovative strategies to help balance that cost management with the need to provide, you know, valuable benefits, to to the workforce.

And data analytics can play a vital role in the effectiveness of these strategies, leveraging data to identify different trends in your plans, utilization.

You can be more targeted in your approach and determine which strategies to implement, you know, because there there's many of them out there. And being proactive, as an approach, is is really important to, you know, maintaining focus on the things that are gonna be most impactful for your organization and your workforce.

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And so third, you know, another thing that, we thought was was very, interesting and kinda in in the news right now. Everyone knows, I think, at this point about, the anti obesity drug class and GLP one medications and their continued growth and popularity, amongst the American public, but also, their impact on the bottom line and driving pharmacy costs over the last couple of years.

As such, we found that sixty percent of organizations don't currently offer coverage for the GLP one medications for weight loss and aren't currently considering adding them in the future.

Only seven percent offer coverage for both diabetes and weight loss without restrictions.

An additional thirty three percent, you know, cover the medication for diabetes, of course, but they also cover for weight loss if specific criteria are met, indicating a cautious approach, to the inclusion of these medications and benefit offerings, despite, you know, the growing recognition of their effectiveness in managing the conditions.

We think that's, you know, largely because of of the cost involved, you know, kind of highlighting the the ongoing debate between balancing cost management of the plan, the fiduciary responsibility, and providing those comprehensive health benefits to all employees.

Employers are really concerned about the high cost associated with these medications currently, which can be, you know, really significant, especially, you know, since they're they're most effective if they are continued to be used, to help manage, weight loss and and, obesity as well.

And and moving forward into, the remainder of twenty twenty five and of twenty twenty six, it'll be important to continually reevaluate, those types of decisions, surrounding coverage as different clinical trials are continuing to go on for, you know, other areas, such as, you know, cardiovascular diseases, even Alzheimer's, in in clinical trials currently.

You know, and the thought is that if these medications can lead to significant weight loss and reduce the risk of obesity related conditions, like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, then overall health care costs will follow.

I think that that kind of remains to be seen at this point given the high cost of the drugs themselves. But definitely something that we're monitoring over here at McGriff and continue to be very interested in those developments.

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Alright. So then looking closer, at the benefit offerings in general and the stability of them, it's particularly encouraging to to see that the majority of organizations plan no changes in their benefit offerings for the coming year, maintaining, you know, those benefit levels. Eighty one percent say no changes to their medical benefits. Eighty nine percent, keeping their retirement benefits stable. This is a reassuring sign, especially, you know, in kind of uncertain economic times, with with a lot of change going on in the outside world, reflecting kind of a confidence in employers' existing programs and and that commitment to supporting their employees, with those benefits.

We all know that maintaining stability and benefits, it isn't just about, you know, the bottom line or the numbers. It's also, you know, part of the message that it sends employees, looking for, you know, that that stable benefit. That's, you know, what they've come to expect, by being, you know, part of the team, and have a positive impact on retention and employee morale.

And as such, wellness programs can have a big impact there as well.

You know, certain aspects of wellness programs are becoming more and more, popular, like biometric screenings and health coaching, indicating a stronger focus on well-being.

But we have seen some challenges such as cost and resource limitations, maybe hindering broader implementation of, certain wellness programs across, you know, all, organizations. But, we think that it's essential to recognize the importance of employee health and, you know, driving engagement productivity. You know, those healthier healthier employees making better decisions, about their health care are more likely to be engaged or motivated and productive in their roles. And by prioritizing wellness, it creates an environment where employees can, you know, thrive both personally and professionally.

You know, even still, some organizations, struggle with with participation, in the programs that they're they're putting forth or integrating those initiatives or or various initiatives across their platform into the existing benefit structure.

We'll discuss more, about that later in the presentation. But, you know, we we we do think that, organizations that invest in wellness programs often see a positive return on investment through, you know, reduced absenteeism, reduced health care costs, and, generally happier, employees.

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And and finally, on on the key findings, we we really saw this year a change from prior years.

Compliance with with current regulations is a significant priority for for most employers and organizations.

Three and four, seventy five percent rating that as very important, in the next twelve months, another twenty one percent, as important in the upcoming twelve months. You know? So almost a hundred percent employer agree that, you know, they have, you know, a strong emphasis on making sure that they're compliant with the various regulatory changes that, keep, popping up. And it's a critical, thing for safeguarding against, legal and financial risk for organizations, and and, you know, needing to be informed and proactive when navigating these, complexities.

It it seems like every, day or two, there's a new regulation or a new bulletin, coming out from from our compliance, professionals, on various topics related to benefits, anything from, you know, leave to, more recently, the the pharmacy, executive order that, that was just announced a couple of days ago by the president. You know, so we all know that it's very complex, constantly evolving, and, it's it's hard to stay informed about all the changes and and regulations that might affect operations, particularly in in the employee benefits space. So having that resource in place, is is really important for, all employers of all industries and sizes, to ensure that you remain compliant, avoid any potential, penalties related to to those sorts of things, and and just being in the know.

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Alright.

So looking ahead, to twenty twenty five, we we asked about the different things that employers were thinking about changing with their benefits.

You know, notably, twenty eight percent of employers said that they're considering shifting more costs to employees via, increased medical plan contributions.

You know? But on the other hand, twenty three percent and about one in four say that they do provide lower cost medical contributions specifically for lower wage workers, reflecting, in that, you know, growing recognition of the financial challenges faced by employees in lower income brackets.

And we think that by offering those whose contributions, organizations may be able to help, alleviate some of the financial, burdens on, you know, that portion of the workforce, making their health care more accessible and affordable.

You know, we we we think that, you know, the rationale for these changes often stems from, you know, the the ever rising, cost of of health care. As medical expenses continue to escalate. Employers are naturally looking for ways to to balance that out while still providing, a really strong, important benefit.

So it's kind of a a push pull dual approach, you know, raising cost for some while providing relief for others.

It's it's one of the complexities of of managing benefits, that you must carefully consider, to ensure that you're supporting all employees in an equitable way, particularly those that that may be most vulnerable, to those financial ills.

And but, nevertheless, I think one of the most important is for organizations to communicate these changes effectively, to all employees to make sure that they understand, you know, the reason behind the data behind, the changes, and and lead to kind of accepting, you know, those types of things.

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Going one level deeper, a couple of other things that employers were saying, shifting more costs via plan design changes and, you know, maybe requiring, higher out of pocket costs for certain low value services or sites of care, you know, shifting, benefit design to where, you know, if you go to a preferred facility, it's, less expensive than just the the general facilities in the area that might be more expensive. And so twelve percent of employers are considering that, in twenty twenty five, over the next twelve months.

And, high performance network plans, can also be beneficial for both employers and employees, leading to reduced health care spending, improved health outcomes, you know, knowing, you know, exactly that that care path through through the network, that when your primary care provider provides that handoff, you know, to the specialist or to, you know, the next phase in the system, it can kind of enhance that overall experience with the system for, the employee while saving money for the employer.

You know, so, organizations might, you know, consider, also promoting the consumer driven health plan as an option that's increasing. Kinda see that trend, you know, over the last couple of years. All these all of these options becoming more and more, popular, with with different employers.

And with that, I wanted to, hand the reins over to Janie Water, HR practice leader for McGriff.

Thanks, Nick. And that was a great, segue into talking about some of the HR concerns, for the current year as well as going into next year that we have seen. And probably, unsurprisingly, to most folks, the top concern, in the HR arena, I suppose, as usual, is employee retention.

You'll probably remember, and I think, Nick mentioned this, early on in the presentation, that, during the pandemic, recruitment was listed as the top issue, and there were so many reasons for that, and we don't wanna rehash all of those. But as we've kind of we as we get further and further away from that period of, of difficulty in the world, what we've seen is, you know, now we've got good folks, and we're more concerned that as we get good folks, we want to keep them. And so keeping a focus on retention is listed as as the top priority for most HR, departments.

And then second, and, again, and I apologize for kinda going back and forth, but, you know, a few years ago, it was recruitment. We gotta get them. Secondly, we've got to retain them. And then third, we'll think about how it is that we develop them. Now leadership development has moved into that second spot, very, very closely, of course, aligned with, employee engagement, and then recruitment has kinda dropped down to just thirty seven percent, of the of the priority here. So apparently recruitment efforts are going well, but the getting the folks and keeping the folks are two different things. And then leadership development and engagement, I believe those go hand in hand, that the better you do at developing leadership or even any other type of advanced level skills for your employees, is going to go a long way in driving engagement.

So all of these things, are are quite important, but when we think about, what's top of mind for most HR departments now, it is gonna be that retention, that retention effort.

So so so so let's talk about that.

We ask the question specifically, what strategies have you used in the last twelve months to help recruit employees? And, of course, compensation is right there at the top. And while we have always been told in the HR world that people don't necessarily leave because of pay, it is a great driver, in getting employees in the door.

If you get them in the door with appropriate compensation, then you probably have it going on with compensation, and they're not gonna leave you because of that. So it's one of those double sided coins, if you will. But increased compensation has been a tool for, the the, the big majority of our, participants in this survey, in ways that they, things that they're using to help recruit.

You'll notice it is a little bit lower than it was in twenty twenty three, not significantly lower than last year, but it but in twenty twenty three, it was at seventy three percent. We're looking at adjusting pay.

Also, in twenty twenty three, if we remember, the, inflation was very high. There were a lot of concerns about cost of living and those kinds of things. So increased comp was was really top of mind.

But it's still top of mind. Sixty four percent is a lot of folks that look at compensation as being a viable and important part of the recruitment process.

Improved, employee onboarding processes, it was also listed as that. And because onboarding can be so different from industry to industry, we're not gonna talk about real specifics here. But if you can make the onboarding process, informative, interesting, enjoyable, not onerous or burdensome to the new employee coming in the door, you're much more likely to be able to keep those folks. So so it goes to the idea that if we treat them well from the very first day, then we're more likely to be able to keep them. So we're recruiting them with more money. We're we are bringing them in the door and treating them very well.

Again, that could be a recruitment strategy because people do talk about that. Yeah. I had a great first day. They treated me like royalty. All of those kinds of things all the way through to, I had a great, on the job training experience at my employer or whatever that was. People do talk about those kinds of things. They're more likely to talk about a bad experience, so we wanna make sure that all of those experiences that we can make so will are enjoyable.

And then additional perks or benefits has remained fairly steady since twenty twenty three.

Always looking for ways to enhance the benefits or the perks of being an employee.

And when we think benefits, we often just think about things like your health insurance or your vision insurance or all those types of things.

But, of course, benefits covers anything that is beyond the base pay of the job.

What do you do with your PTO? Or do you offer any kind of enhanced, benefits for family planning or for dealing with, illnesses or anything like that, beyond the things that are required by law? And then perks can be anything from, do you offer, free snacks in the break rooms? Do you offer memberships to a health club or to, do you offer paid time off for people to volunteer, for, you know, things that are are considered, civically minded?

Excuse me.

So those are still important.

Suddenly, a third of folks use those, as ways to help recruit employees. And then additional workplace flexibility.

And and this specifically spoke to or or questioned the participants on their hybrid and remote work policies.

And, in twenty twenty three, I don't think this particular question was asked. But last year and then into this year, it it still is an important aspect of the recruitment process, being able to offer, a a a remote or a hybrid type of workplace.

And so, folks are still looking at this. It's still important. It's still gonna dry I believe it's still gonna drive a lot of recruitment efforts in the next few years as people have gotten used to the idea of working remotely or at least working remotely, part time, having to go into the office fewer than five days a week, and there's so many reasons for that. We we just don't wouldn't even have time to go into it, but just, you know, the top three is, is dealing with, the cost of commuting, where where people live wouldn't necessarily have to be as close to the office if they're not having to go there every single day.

The cost just the cost of of professional clothing can sometimes be onerous for employees, and then, being able to be a little more flexible, in the time so that they can, work from home. Perhaps if, they've got a work a workman coming to the house to fix the plumbing, then they can be at home and but still be working while other things are going on. So there's a lot of reasons people love this idea in a in a lot of reasons. I think it's totally here to stay, but it's probably gonna morph a little bit more over the next few years.

Some of the additional strategies that we've been seeing, of course, additional PTO and vacation. Everybody loves paid time off. And whatever form that takes, whether it's we're just gonna give you extra PTO, you use it for whatever you want to, or like I mentioned earlier, offering paid time off to volunteer for certain things, perhaps, extra vacation time in exchange for something else. Whatever those things are, those are good recruitment tools as well, especially if you understand what the your top competitors for talent are doing, in your space.

So different industries have different competitors, and so you wanna be aware of what your competitors are doing so that you don't find yourself behind that power curve. So big recruit big recruitment tool there.

Enhanced retirement benefits.

Twenty years ago, retirement was kind of important, but not top of mind for everybody. As we move, you know, toward a huge part of the workforce entering into their early 40s now, and of course, lots of boomers that are at the retirement age but are still concerned about retirement benefits, we're seeing that as taking, on a larger importance, and employers are looking at those as well. Sign on bonuses, we've talked about these for several years during the pandemic. It was real big. You know, we'll we'll pay somebody to come to work for us so that we can get them.

It still has stayed up there right now. It's at, the participants said about twenty three percent are either offering or considering offering sign on bonuses.

I've talked about in the last couple of years doing stay bonuses, where as a recruit as a retention tool, can be really important to keep people on board longer. And then adjustments to the forty hour work week, people are looking at that as well as a recruitment strategy, a little less so than it was a couple of years ago, but still very important. People like to know that they can flex their hours.

You know, we, we saw a big surge in the compressed work week several years ago where, a lot of folks were doing the four ten hour days and then having one day completely off a week, and they were able to deal with appointments for doctors or for kids or whatever that was. If they were, able to flex that day off so that maybe this week, I'm taking off Wednesday because my kids have a school program. But next week, I'm gonna be off on Tuesday because I have a number of doctor appointments I wanna try to knock out in one day. And that and that continues to be important, and I think a great tool for not only recruitment for but for retention as well.

It tells your employees that you trust them to do the work that is required even if it is in a differently, structured workday. Of course, I always give the caveat. There are some businesses that are, you know, strictly tied to certain hours, and that's just the way that it has to be. But if the work can be flexed into different hours, it's a really good tool, to be used.

So we go we move into retention. And this was where we started asking, what have you done in the last twelve months to, you know, for retention?

And, of course, that that's where we saw the increased focus on professional development and career pathing. We used to talk about career pathing all the time in the HR world. That was like a biggie, and we've kind of gotten away from that.

Really, I'm not real sure why, maybe we just presumed that it was being done and we quit talking about it so much. But it's still important to most employees to say, I want to see that I have growth opportunities, and that's what we're talking about here. When we say, professional development or leadership development, leadership sometimes implies that, we're we are preparing you for a leadership role, and that may, or may not be the case, depending on, the role that the person currently has. If it is a total entry level position and all of your leadership roles, require a much higher level skill, you can still do development toward, an eye on the future, and employees feel valued when you tell them we want to keep you long term, but we don't see you having to stay in the same job forever.

So we're gonna provide opportunities for you to learn more and to gain better and higher level skills so that you'll be prepared to move into positions as they become available. And we can see that over the last couple of years, it's remained fairly stable, but it took just a tiny up uptick on this year's survey, and I think that's a really good sign. With a lot of companies looking at succession planning, a little more deeply because of the anticipated, departure of baby boomers from the workforce, I think succession planning is taking on another big gasp to to start really moving forward, and this is these are good programs to, kick those off as well as to enhance the succession plans that you already have in place.

Again, the commitment to ongoing flexible work arrangements, like I said on the previous slide, it's not only a good recruitment tool, it's a good retention tool for all the reasons that we mentioned. It is it is a little bit less than it was two years ago, but it's more than it was last year. So I think, when it took a little bit of a dip in importance last year, they got, I think a lot of employers got a little pushback and saying, you know, well well, why can't you still be flexible? If it works last year, it should still work this year. And so because of that pushback, I think a lot of employers go, well, maybe we need to rethink that. Maybe we need to relook at that and see if there's some ways that we can continue to be flexible.

Additional perks or benefits. Again, anything that you can do that is, and this is important. This is an important point to make.

If it is important to your employees, it will be considered, an additional perk. If it's not important, they won't see it as a perk. They will just see it as something else you're doing. So it it's important that you ask those, questions. We'll talk about that in just a second.

Investments in employee professional development resources.

Again, that's talking about where where are you putting your money? How are you spending it? So employers are looking diligently.

It's unchanged as a percentage, but it's twenty eight percent is a very high percentage of folks that are looking at we wanna make sure that we provide good resources for folks to be able to develop, professionally, and to prepare themselves for for bigger and better things. And that can actually include, tuition reimbursements, which we've seen, as a as a fairly common, benefit or perk of the workplace consistently over probably thirty years.

Hasn't changed just a whole lot, but I think we've seen an uptick in, employees wanting that type of benefit where they feel like especially if they've got a little more flexible workplace, that they may feel like they have more time to devote to being a a part time student, and that tuition reimbursement reimbursement can really be helpful.

And then some of the other, lesser, if you will, responses that we got, off cycle salary increases. And that can look like a lot of things. It can look like, a retention bonus. It can look like some sort of incentive for a specific performance goal achievement, so that it's not all tied to just once a year, we give pay raises, or once a year, we do, we do employee evaluations, and that's when you are considered for a pay increase. So doing off cycle salary increases can kinda keep interest up. It can also really push productivity, and retention efforts.

And then additional PTO or vacation, we talked about that.

Formalize boundaries around work, life balance, and working hours. This pops up a lot, especially if you have employees who, have their email downloaded to their personal phones or their other personal devices, and they don't really feel that there's a dividing line between work hours and personal hours. And and we see a lot of employers saying we really need to be mindful of those boundaries because they're hearing it from employees that they want those boundaries to be respected.

So that's big. And I think, as we go along, and as technology increases and as that hybrid workplace, popularity continues to remain high, I think that's gonna be something important for employers to make really, definitive lines in the sand about when you're working and when you're not working.

Retention bonuses, again, keeping keeping people a stay bonus is a big tool. Do not ignore the stay bonus as an important, piece of retention. Adjustment to traditional forty hours, again, and then enhanced retirement benefits again. All of those, a lot of, like we said before, most of the things that are gonna help you with recruitment will definitely help you with retention. So if you get them right on recruitment, you'll you'll get it right in retention and vice versa.

So we're gonna move along just a little more quickly. I'm I'm getting close to the end of of of my allotted time. But I I I love these surveys because they they tell us not only they give us good valuable information, but very often, it reiterates to us the things that we already know and we've we're already seeing. And very few HR people, HR professionals, or or even executives are gonna be really surprised by any of these responses here because they they have tended to remain very steady, over the past few years.

Again, remote work. I don't wanna spend a lot of time on this, but but I think the important, statistic on this is there at the bottom of the screen where it says that for employers who said they have a hybrid work arrangement, eighty seven percent of them, so almost all of them, said that they expect workers to be in the office more than one day per week. So we're seeing that shift from, yeah, during the pandemic, you know, everybody was staying at home a hundred percent of the time, but now we're moving toward hybrid. And if we are a hybrid, we're not just doing the one day a week.

Most of us are expecting more than one day a week, and sometimes it's just two week two days a week. For others, it's three days a week. And a lot of that is gonna be driven by, by client and customer expectations and then by the idea that collaboration is more likely to happen in person at the office versus if everybody's remote. And there's a lot of different, schools of thought on that, which we don't have time to go into.

But I think it's important to understand your employee base and your customer base and understanding why all of those things need to be need to go into that decision making on how you do that.

So my last couple of thoughts here is is strictly about employee engagement and, of course, communication.

And when I when I said earlier, you need to understand what people find important, that really goes to the idea of engagement. So if you're gonna do an engagement survey, and I hope I I hope more than just forty percent, will will do engagement surveys because I think you can just get such good information if you use the tool in the way it's intended, which is to gather information that you really, really need and not just ask questions to be asking them. And so finding out what it is that motivates your employees, finding out what it is that that makes them wanna get out of bed in the morning and come to work for you. All of those are important. But within that engagement survey, ask them about what do we do well as a company and then break it down by, you know, what do you think of our compensation?

What do you think of our benefits?

If, if you could pick a benefit that we don't do not currently offer, what would what would that be? What would that look like? And I think sometimes you'll be surprised what people really find important, and it may not be the thing that is the most popular on the top forty hits of of the HR world. It may be something that you haven't even thought of because, again, we know that our employee populations are very specific to us. Our culture drives a lot of those kinds of things, and understanding why employees like being what where they are and stay engaged and productive is is just gonna help us do things better and spend our money in the most important places.

So when we talk about, where we're spending our money and, of course, we always come back to health management. And I think yeah. I'm gonna toss it over to Katie because she's got some great thoughts on this. And as she goes into her presentation, on wellness initiatives and and the thoughts on that, I want her to take the rest of the screen and talk about, health navigation and advocacy. So, take it away, Katie.

Thank you so much, Janie. And as we go into that discussion, Janie, well, I've still got you here. Let me ask you something as our HR expert.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on services that help employees understand and navigate their benefits and have support to handle claims issues and ideally taking some of that off of HR's plate?

Well, I I don't I don't think it can be overstated how important those types of tools can really be.

Not only does it take some of the, time pressures off of the HR staff or the benefit staff or whoever it is that's handling it for your company, so that they are freed up to do some other things. But it also gives the employee, that feeling that the company is really helping me understand because most employees don't come into the workplace having this, huge understanding of how benefits work. And if you keep in mind that it the younger generation of employees coming in, they've never had to deal with insurance. They've been on their parents' insurance their whole life. They don't really understand how it works. And so having those resources, having, ways to not only navigate how you sign up for it, but how you use them, what it's gonna cost you, all of those things. I think those kinds of tools, if you can offer them in the workplace, they're probably just worth worth their weight in gold.

I I agree. And just as an example, when doing those engagement surveys, if you have an a needs and intro section, as Jamie mentioned, asking about something like advocacy programs, that's an example and an explanation of what they are is a good question to consider adding on. From our survey, it looks like about half of our respondents either have these programs in place already, or they're looking to add them. And, you know, as Jenny said, we actually do have a pretty good understanding of benefits and they're still really complex and people often get pinballed around between the carrier or the provider and then a third party billing company.

And they have a hard time making sense of what to do sometimes. Not to mention if there's a claim that's denied, it can create some friction. So advocacy programs are a great way to help employees have additional support to understand what's the best course of action, what are their options, the next steps and, and what to do if they have a claim denied. And, you know, like I said, we work in benefits and even our head could be spending some time with handling our own care and keeping track of everything.

And especially with something like a surgery or a major illness, having that extra support, especially when you have all this, the mental strain of what you're going through or a family member is going through, it can be really helpful.

So with that, we're going to just go into the final section of our presentation today, covering some of the trends that we're seeing in the well-being from our survey.

So the definition of a wellness program can be very broad. So even though sixty five percent of our respondents said they do not have a wellness program currently, they might be still engaging in certain wellness activities or have programs and features available through their insurance carrier.

Of the thirty five percent of respondents who do have a formal wellness program in place, the number one reason selected for offering these programs was to create a culture of health and to promote better health for their employees.

Reducing healthcare expenses and those premium increases were also popular responses, as well as increasing employee satisfaction and retention.

Now years ago, we used to see reducing medical expenses and premium increases as the number one reason for investing in a wellness program.

I think that this is a good move towards a better alignment, just from people's viewpoint as medical and premium costs can be subject to so many different factors. And while we can help promote better health, it can be difficult to hinge the whole value of a program solely on those medical costs, especially with high deductible health plans and inflation. We sometimes have to read between the lines and determine if care avoidance is causing a short term decrease in costs.

And it's good with wellness programs to focus on the, what's called the VOI, the overall value of the investment for employees' physical, mental, and emotional well-being, productivity, and as a company value versus just a dollar return on investment, even though you can still have that too.

We also found that one quarter of respondents did not have a wellness program in place due to the cost, and thirty two percent did not have the bandwidth or human resources for a program. And this is really understandable and part of the reason why even small initiatives, things that are really easy to deploy, like offering healthier food options on-site or adding signs and reminders about telehealth or EAP benefits or promoting existing community and those carrier resources that we sometimes forget are there that can help to add value without adding a lot of time and money invested.

As I mentioned earlier, there's not like a real strict definition of a wellness program and different components can be more or less effective for different employers based on their culture and their employee needs.

Here we have listed some of the more popular features of a program, probably familiar with most of these, along with their adoption rates from last year and compared to this year. Nick talked a little bit about this. The weight management programs had a decrease in popularity, and that could be due to the popularity of those anti obesity medications.

People might be looking to manage their weight more through a doctor and like through a program like that versus through an employer sponsored program.

However, there are many weight management programs that run alongside the use of those medications and promote the lifestyle changes along with the coaching that can be a key component for their effectiveness.

And these programs, a lot of them can also offer, guardrails for coverage on the medication and through that administration of a comprehensive clinical and lifestyle weight management program and kind of take that off of your plate.

We did see an increase in the popularity of seminars, classes and education. Now I found this one really interesting and I'm a little bit curious about it. If this was something that employees requested or if it's part of new campaigns and programs in place, or just sort of a culture building activity to kind of bringing this more to the forefront. So if your organization is one of those that's adding more health education programs, please feel free to reach out to us, comment, when we have this webinar posted on LinkedIn and let us know how that's been fitting in with your wellness program. And if that's enhanced engagement, workplace culture or productivity.

Now we saw on a previous slide that one of the biggest challenges for employers who would like to put a wellness program into place, but have not is the burden of administration and costs.

We can see here that sixty seven percent of respondents are doing their wellness programs in house, which can significantly add to the administrative list and require additional bandwidth.

Thirty eight percent are using third party vendors and thirty percent are using the carrier.

There are a lot of options out there through technology that can affordably help ease the administrative burden if you are doing something in house and some of them even could be total rewards or communications platforms as well. So more of a hybrid approach because we know people get app fatigue and email fatigue, notification fatigue, so it's good to have something that's streamlined. So it's really good to keep aware of those different options out there. We're always happy to share information on what's the latest and greatest and help create less work for everyone and more accessibility.

We're also seeing incentives continue to be popular with eighty five percent of employers providing incentives. And the majority are using those for, program participation versus achieving specific health outcomes.

Well, the majority here are using gift cards that is taking to account if people are just doing, you know, kind of one time health challenges too. We're seeing more traction with providing incentives of health savings or health reimbursement account deposits, as well as premium differentials. Now I tend to lean towards using the latter and as it's helpful that that money is directed towards employed healthcare costs, and it's not taxed like gift cards and cash. Also, I think we all know there's a high rate of gift cards that never get used, or they end up regifted and someone's Christmas gawking at the last minute as a present at the end of the year.

So they can be great as prizes or as an incentive for health challenges or for one time activities, but for an ongoing program, it can help employees a lot to have that money used to help them pay deductibles for prescriptions or, alternative care that they might need, or just to have money in their paycheck with that medical plan contribution.

We're also seeing that sixteen percent of employers surveyed are increasing their budget for wellness programs. So that's going to be interesting to see how that shows up in our survey next year.

On this side, I don't have too much to say here because a lot of this is very similar to last year. But we see how employers are surveying, how we're approaching mental health in the workplace in terms of benefits and training. Now we don't see, like I said, there's not much of a difference. It's kind of hard to, to see like where there's some finer points here, but some of the small variations I think it would be just variances in the groups responding, but overall employee systems programs or EAPs have high rates of adoption. Now that doesn't necessarily mean utilization. And in fact, they tend to be really under utilized, which I think is kind of a bummer because they're a really great benefit. They offer so many different services that people often forget about, from helping people through a personal crisis, finding child or elder care, legal services, or even something like, you know, you need to find a licensed roofer in your area.

I always encourage employees to remind people about these benefits, have them save it in their phones. They download the app, do what they've gotta do because you never know when someone might need them for themselves or for family members. And it's also good to check-in with your broker or your EAPs and find out what do they have that's the latest and greatest. As many of them have been updating their services, they're offering more things like manager trainings, on-site crisis response, and a lot of these really robust digital platforms now too.

Finally, we are gonna wrap up on this slide as I think it's very important we are facing. I know we talked about a lot about this and, Janie discussed it, Nick discussed it as well, that we're facing so many challenges with both affordability and accessibility to care, coupled with huge increases in the cost of basic necessities, such as rent, food, and childcare. And I think that this is probably the most important thing for us to be tackling over the next two, years. And it's going to have impact for many, many years to come. What we can see happen is that people will avoid care and then end up having catastrophic claims that can not only be costly, but greatly decrease quality of life and result in a lot of lost productivity.

In order to bridge those gaps between the shortage of primary care providers, high deductibles and healthcare costs and unmanaged chronic conditions, many employers are looking at options to help provide those services directly to help employees avoid the huge financial risks and also for them to reduce the claims volatility and the risk too.

So things like virtual primary care. Now this is very different than traditional telehealth. It's not just like an acute situation. It's an ongoing relationship where people have a dedicated primary care provider available to them virtually.

So they don't have to take time off work and, you know, deal with losing lost pay or transportation, if that's an issue. And they help to manage their chronic conditions. They can send them for labs as needed in network labs and steer them away from unnecessary ER origin care visits. It's almost more like a concierge health benefit too.

And so, usually employees do these very favorably, so they can integrate with claims data, but it does fit out preventive visit is covered at a hundred percent, the scope of that is so narrow that it's really not difficult for people to get a surprise bill and then just decide that they're just never gonna go to the doctor again. That absolutely happens.

These programs can also help for mental health, support along with primary care, And they include family members usually too. So that can help promote better engagement all around and close a lot of those gaps in care that creates so much cost and risk.

Another option for clients trying to provide more direct care for employees are the on-site near site clinics. It looks like adding this benefit peaked in twenty twenty four when we look at the last three years with nearly one quarter of respondents saying that they are providing on-site or near site clinics.

Decision support tools, those are also growing in popularity and they tend to have better utility than just like a straight transparency tool. A lot of times people don't know what they're searching for, what they're going to need ultimately. And so having their options and not having to figure it out themselves and not just getting a cost range is really helpful. And those employer contributions to health savings accounts are on the rise.

That helps employees with those rising costs. And while these services and ideas, they can be an investment upfront, they do often as either being cost neutral or resulting in savings as they provide not just a big perk for employees, but they encourage them to get the care that they need without the stress and anxiety of how much it's going to cost. And not listed here, but I wanted to mention it's a growing area that's worth mentioning. Our services coming out now that provide virtual primary care for pets.

Now this is very different from pet insurance. It's basically allowing you to have a virtual visit with a vet for every pet in your household. I heard some services said they cover up to ninety nine pets, and I don't know many of us that have reached that upper limit yet. Some of us might be close, but they can help them get the care that they need or directed to a higher point of care if needed, if they need to go in person, but at least it's kind of eliminating that step.

Now, we might not think about this in the traditional lens of benefits, but with these benefits being very affordable and allowing people to save money on vet bills, which are also becoming very expensive, it can help their overall financial situation and give them peace of mind. Also, many people consider pets part of their family, and I know people that will sometimes put the care of their pets ahead of their own care. So it's a nice offering for employees at a very low cost.

And finally, I just want to say on behalf of our whole team, thank you so much for joining us today or joining us later if you're listening to the recording of this webinar. And please feel free to reach out to us with any questions, either through your, local McGriff rep or through our website.

And we look forward to seeing you again virtually in twenty twenty six.