As HR departments look at
Employers are slashing access to essential benefits like 401(k) plans, areas of health insurance, tuition assistance and more to combat the impact of inflation and layoffs, according to a 2024 workplace trends report from Glassdoor.
Yet rather than cutting the most expensive benefits employees rely on most, leaders are better off figuring out which underutilized offerings can be eliminated instead. Those saved dollars can then be used to support the benefits their workforce needs and wants, says Alison Mincey, SVP and CHRO at UHealth and the University of Miami.
"People in my role have a finite amount of resources," says Mincey. "We have made conscious decisions of where we need to invest in our benefits infrastructure, and at the same time, we are focusing on operational efficiency — where [we] can reduce and where we can then reinvest has been a very high area of focus for us."
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UHealth relies on a robust, modern communications platform, training sessions for benefits education, webinars and benefit fairs to share information about available benefits with their 20,000 employees. Many of these methods are also a way for HR to gain feedback from employees, which is then used to determine what changes should be made. Done continuously, this results in a more impactful benefits package, says Mincey.
"We're a multigenerational, diverse workforce with people in various stages of life and career," she says. "Not everyone consumes information in the same way; you need to make sure your workforce has an opportunity to tell you what's working for them, what's not, and what they need, and you have to solve the most pressing issues."
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UHealth is still consistently investing in their broad-based benefits such as healthcare and retirement. But employee feedback about other areas of need — like debt and the high cost of living — led to the implementation of a student loan repayment program for the health system side of the organization through an education assistance benefits platform.
It is important to investigate the most efficient ways of gathering and analyzing employee data and feedback, Mincey says, and sometimes going outside of the organization makes more sense.
"We asked them, how much debt do you have, and we now know it's almost $200 million [company-wide]," she says. "That's not surprising because we have a lot of people who have multiple degrees. So now we are contributing a fairly large portion, if not all of the portion, of their monthly payment. That frees up otherwise encumbered income that they can use on housing, commuting expenses, doing things that promote well-being — anything they want."
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Other recently addressed areas include an increase in minimum wage and tiered contributions for healthcare, things that help lower-wage earners within the organization. Meanwhile, feedback from the workforce also revealed the ability to discontinue a backup child care benefit that had been put into effect during the pandemic. After finding out it was no longer being leveraged, the benefit was discontinued, Mincey says.
"More than ever, it's important to talk to your workforce and look at your data at the same time," she says. "Understand your culture and how your workforce receives and communicates information to you. I don't want to be in a position where I'm doing something for one group and not doing it for another."
