Many employers face a formidable quandary: how to balance the rising cost of benefits with growing employee wellness needs. Having the right technology can help.
Jon Shanahan
President and CEO, Businessolver
We’re in the business of benefits, but like every organization, we face the dual challenge of delivering meaningful support to our employees while controlling spend. To manage costs from the budget’s heaviest line item, companies are often faced with hard decisions and competing priorities around their benefits strategy. But with the right benefits technology in place, employers can balance cost containment with employee care for real results.
In 2024, U.S. employers spent on average nearly $26,000 per family and $9,000 per individual on employee-sponsored health insurance — a 24% increase over the past five years1 — with healthcare costs expected to rise a record 9% this year.2 For many employers, this is an unsustainable trajectory that our latest Benefits Insights study shows is compounded by financial insecurity and persistent benefits confusion: 48% of employees admit they would feel panicked by a $6,000 emergency room bill and 86% say they’re confused about their benefits.
The need for decision support
From deciphering healthcare jargon to picking the right plan, a lack of benefits literacy often results in poor decision-making — leaving employees and employers alike with missed opportunities to manage well-being and see a return on their benefits investment. However, technology is helping employees and organizations alike break through these barriers and optimize both benefits selections and year-round usage for improved outcomes.
For example, when aided by best-match decision support at enrollment, employees are more than twice as likely to elect a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) with a health savings account (HSA) — a benefits option with long-term advantages for both employee and employer. For one of our national hospitality clients, an 84% increase in HDHP adoption over a three-year period resulted in $2.2 million in savings.
Empathetic AI
Another lever in the benefits technology arsenal is “empathetic AI” — AI that is purposefully designed to recognize employee sentiment while offering deeply personalized and empathetic support. While there’s a lot of hype around AI, our data demonstrates the real value it brings to the benefits equation, such as a 90% same-day inquiry resolution rate — equating to a tremendous amount of efficiency gains through time saved and satisfied employees.
AI can decode sentiment, summarize interactions, and identify emerging issues. These types of insights don’t just drive efficiencies — they empower your business to proactively manage well-being and costs. This is nothing short of a paradigm shift that will redefine how organizations drive sustainable cost-management while supporting employee wellness and benefits adoption through data-driven strategies.
Other strategies we see employers embracing include:
- Scaling benefits personalization with AI: The benefits experience can’t end at enrollment. True ROI lies in guiding employees toward optimized decisions all year. By leveraging user data, such as call history, searches, and claims, AI anticipates employee needs and delivers individualized care at scale. Employees recognize this advantage with 89% allowing their claims data to be used for targeted communications.
- Amplifying HR’s strategic value: Today’s data insights free HR from manual administrative burden, empowering them to act as strategists and drive ROI through benefits optimization, employee retention, and talent acquisition. Imagine identifying “delighter” benefits versus “nice-to-haves” to realign program spending. Or filtering data by generation to forecast emerging preferences and usage trends. The ability to understand and predict value-drivers has never been more accessible.
- Redefining the meaning of benefits: Employers are increasingly tasked with supporting employees in every aspect of their lives. From fertility benefits to caregiver programs, employers hold the power to profoundly impact well-being. But perhaps the most decisive shift is the desire for autonomy. Our State of Workplace Empathy report shows employees increasingly seek autonomy over their work, favoring flexible hours (94%) and flexible locations (89%) as key empathetic benefits — even over annual compensation increases (87%).
Balancing costs with care is no easy endeavor. But empathetic AI is proving to be a powerful accelerator in the benefits equation by driving revolutionary insights for HR while scaling the empathy employees need in the moments that matter.
See how you can drive better outcomes for your business at
www.businessolver.com
