For years now, AI-based tech systems have been training people to expect hyper-personal experiences wherever they go. Shopping online, watching TV and even grocery shopping have been transformed by personalization.
But the workplace has lagged behind the personalization curve. Employee benefits in particular have traditionally followed a static, one-size-fits-all model. Now, in a tight economy, employers are reexamining benefits with the help of their advisers and discovering two exciting things: Employees want benefits that adapt to their needs and priorities; and the tools now exist to easily make this a reality in a way that actually cuts costs.
The future of employee benefits is personalization and flexibility, and reexamining how companies approach paid time off (PTO) is a critical piece of the puzzle.
Read more:
Employee wellness gained steam in the 90s and was taken to the next level in the mid-2000s. Think about the ping pong tables, relaxation rooms and catered lunches of Silicon Valley's golden era. Or the classic "health fair" with healthy snacks and maybe a massage chair.
These perks were flashy, but mostly about surface-level physical health. Today, HR teams are going deeper and emphasizing everything that goes into making a person happy and healthy. Backing this up is Monster's
"Personalization" and "flexibility" have become common buzzwords, but what do they really mean? Ultimately, it's all about adapting to employees on their own terms. The workforce of 2023 and beyond is highly multigenerational. Millennials, Gen Z, boomers, etc., all have different needs, life circumstances and priorities.
An example: even pre-pandemic, employee surveys showed that given a choice between more money and more vacation days, different employees make different choices.
Read more:
Employers need to solve this for everyone. And the only way to do that is to bake flexibility into the benefits being offered.
PTO is a perfect example of how benefit advisers and the HR teams they serve can earn a huge win by transforming a traditionally static benefit into something personal and flexible. Taking time off is proven to help prevent burnout and improve productivity, but major barriers to doing so persist: financial stress, workplace pressures and guilt top the list. All of these have only gotten worse in the past few years.
In this context, companies are focusing on rethinking their PTO policies as a way to help improve employee well-being, while also solving some major business challenges.
Many organizations are abandoning unlimited PTO and advising others to do the same. As it turns out, this brings major compliance issues and management headaches with little benefit. In fact,
The focus now is on giving employees flexibility and ownership — the power to use their time off when they need, for what they need. Time off looks different for different people, and companies need to support that.
Read more:
Some teams are experimenting with company-wide vacations and PTO minimums. Others are actually
Others are implementing PTO conversion programs that give employees the option to convert some unused PTO into cash, retirement savings, student loan payments and more. PTO conversion is a great example of transforming something static to be flexible and personal can be a real win. Employees love it for the flexibility and peace of mind it gives them; businesses love it for the compliance and liability benefits.
Through the rest of 2023 and beyond, we'll see companies putting into practice the lessons they learned over the course of the pandemic. Chief among these is the importance of personalization when it comes to employee wellness.
As companies navigate today's increasingly tight economy, the costs of employee turnover are higher than ever. In this light, benefits are getting a new look in the context of employee retention — and what employees tell us is that they want flexibility and personalization.
