Are You Behind the Times?

Hi everyone,??

Dr. Kimberly Dunwoody, MA, Ed.D. , VP of UX and Member Experience at Businessolver, here with a special edition of the Benefits Pulse Newsletter.??

Tuesday, we launched our seventh annual Benefits Insights report. This year’s data proves out how important it is for HR to have the right technology, the right user experience, and the right benefits as levers to help manage costs.??

?? Read the Full Report Here?

Many of you are likely looking for sustainable strategies to balance rising healthcare costs with evolving employee benefits expectations, all while trying to show the value of these costs to your stakeholders.?

The one thing we hope our readers take away this year: Technology is the future of HR, but without an effective or engaging employee experience, you won’t see lasting results and neither will your employees.??

Let's dive in.

Benefits are confusing for everyone.??

86% of employees say they’re confused about benefits—a stat that’s held steady for as long as we’ve been studying the data. And it’s no wonder—healthcare was not designed with a general consumer in mind.???

This confusion often also impacts other areas of employee wellbeing, like:?

• Financial preparedness: 20% of Millennials say they would have to go into debt to cover medical costs?

• Mental health: 62% of Gen Z say they’re panicked about facing an unexpected medical expense?

• Getting the right benefits: Only 17% of employees enrolled in a pre-tax savings account with their medical plan when they didn’t have decision support at annual enrollment?

Does this dilemma sound familiar to you? How is your benefits team currently handling this for your organization? ?? Let us know in the comments.?

But when the experience is personalized, employees are more confident and engaged?

…And our clients are seeing that confidence and engagement translate into dollars saved, time saved, and talent saved. AI and user experience play a big role in helping our clients deliver personalization at scale in their benefits administration.??

I did a live reading of the report if you want to give it a listen.

Our data shows that when employees have access to AI and advanced tools in their benefits experience, they overwhelmingly engage with the technology—resulting in faster, higher-quality issue resolution, more time saved, and higher satisfaction overall.?

Here’s how Sofia, our empathetic AI service, helps our clients and their employees do that:???

But key HR tech adoption is lagging behind employee expectations. How much is this costing your organization??

Having decision support at enrollment for an organization of 11,000 employees can mean a $3,000,000 difference in spend.??

Having intelligent technology, like 24/7 chat, personalized benefits reminders, and even verification services, can tally up to even more.??

But today, only 39% of HR have implemented an AI solution according to an HR Executive survey. However, 美世 research finds that 85% of HR professionals planning to implement AI for total rewards and benefits over the next year, and 52% prioritizing AI investment.??

The top AI opportunity that HR mentioned? AI-powered analytics to control benefits costs and gain workforce insights.?

Our data is showing just how valuable these insights can be for HR. Check out the data for yourself, and hear from some of our clients, in the report.??

?? Read the Full Report Here?