Against the Herd With Matt Macri-Waller

Against the Herd is a podcast where I speak with contrarian leaders and visionaries at the cutting edge of the future of work—and living.?

In my latest episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Matt Macri-Waller . As the Founder and CEO of Benefex , Matt has a passion for delivering incredible employee experiences. Benefex’s platform combines employee benefits software with wellbeing programs and reward and recognition tech.

He believes that mass market benefits are a moot point. There is now a hunger for personalisation—“appealing to that audience of one”, as he says. Since the expectations around where and how we work have already shifted to a more personalised mindset, Matt’s mission with Benefex is to help employee benefits rapidly catch up. Organisations are finally realising that different people are at different points in their life and need to meet them where they are. We can’t govern when someone hits a particular lifestage; just because you are a certain age doesn’t mean it’s a given that you have bought a house and had children.

The biggest trend Matt is seeing in the “future of benefits” space right now? Flexibility. He’s seeing a growing desire in organisations wanting to provide value, even if it’s to the smallest proportion of people. An example here is fertility benefits. Obviously, not everyone will need to leverage options there… but for those who do? For that person at the moment, that has the potential to be much more life-changing than a retirement plan.

This all ties in perfectly with my mantra: It’s about the future of living, not the future of work. When Matt talks about improving employee well-being, that doesn’t just ensure the organisation thrives. It ensures that people’s lives are enriched outside of work. If their employer can help them get fresh food delivered while they are working from a place with food scarcity, that’s making someone’s life better. This is what Matt’s driving.

During our conversation, Matt mentioned something else that struck me. When we’re interviewing potential new hires, we ask them why they’re joining and what they are trying to achieve. But then managers rarely write that down and rarely refer back to that. So, how can we actually support their journey without the proper documentation? Very valid point.

Matt firmly believes that technology can improve the way we interact with employees throughout their tenure. Someone who was diagnosed with a disease, someone who just moved to a new country due to their flexible working model, someone who just had a child… the data gets pulled and then that employee gets asked: “Here’s a set of factors to think about. Is there anything I can help you with?” Just simply giving a new hire their PTO allowance and retirement plan and healthcare options doesn’t cut it for this #futureofbenefits visionary.

I think we all have a lot to learn from Matt, and not just the amazing amount of empathy he has when it comes to designing better employee experiences. He also has an analytical side to back all this up! Matt and the Benefex team conducted research to understand the cost versus the perceived value. Turns out, the most expensive benefits had the least perceived value to the employee. To dive deeper into these findings (and to get some ideas for more personalised benefits for your colleagues), check out the full Against the Herd episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2162318/13492652-matt-macri-waller-ceo-founder-at-benefex