What solutions should be included in a modern benefits plan that will solidify strong retention rates and attract top talent in the job marketplace? Is it childcare? Mental health services? Parental leave? Chemotherapy? How about fertility treatments, virtual healthcare, and even housing stipends?

The answer is, across the board, “yes,” and there are additional items that should probably be included, too. So said the audience of a From Day One webinar, “Ensuring your Benefits Plan is Adaptable to a Changing Health Care Environment.” The wide range of replies reveals just a sampling of what HR and benefits leaders must consider when developing healthcare programming. 

Challenges abound for these people managers, especially in light of the pandemic and the recent wave of worker empowerment. First, they must strive to appease as many members of what should be a diverse workforce as possible, with programming that addresses a bevy of needs about as varied as the company’s employee demographics chart. Benefits leaders also have to anticipate rising costs in healthcare and prepare for adjustments to ensure continued affordability, while also keeping an eye on the competition. In this volatile job marketplace, hiring folk don’t want other companies in their industry and adjacent ones to gain an edge in talent acquisition. 

“Finding a single package that is competitive, equitable, and controls cost is a tricky tightrope to walk for some of the customers that I get to work with,” said Liz Ferega, vice president of customer solutions at Accolade, a platform connecting providers to businesses and their employees, which sponsored the talk. 

“Then you add in the factor that we think is out of our control, which is the healthcare system itself, and the impact that COVID has had on the industry,” said Andrew Rosa, vice president of customer care at Accolade. 

There have been supply chain issues borne of pandemic conditions, he said. The way care is delivered has changed for many, Rosa added, as have costs, and so the programs that have been around for a while at any given employee’s place of employment may no longer suit that worker’s needs.

But the Accolade VPs offered a series of tips on how companies can future-proof their benefits packaging:

Communicate Effectively with Employees

Ferega said that one goal for employers should be to provide their workers with improved “health and benefits literacy” through robust and effective communication about the programming they offer. She also said people leaders should establish a “feedback loop” between themselves and employees, so that they can better understand workers’ needs and demands and “help [companies] maintain that competitive position for talent.”

Add Off-Cycle Benefit Options

Benefits packages can be put in place for workers at any time. In fact, changing up the timing could be a terrific future-proofing hack.

Ferega is currently working with a company that is officially instituting new health equity and well-being programs in the spring, after a soft launch at the beginning of the year. “That’s a great way to keep the benefits conversation going outside of open enrollment, when it’s all about, just, what one has to do and in what timeframe,” she said. 

“It just changes the environment, to be able to work quickly,” chimed in Rosa. “Sometimes as an employer you feel locked in to that year and it’s kind of like, ‘Well, let’s see how the rest of the year goes,’ even though it might be March and you know you’ve got to make a change.”

But there’s actually no real reason to wait until January.

Pay Attention to How Other Companies Are Adapting

“Benefits are becoming more and more important to the workforce,” Ferega observed. Given this truth, it’s important for hiring leaders and benefits programmers to observe what other companies are offering in this area. 

She outlined that Accolade, in response to growing trends in healthcare programming, recently implemented fertility benefits, which “solves a big need [for employees] in terms of family forming and health equity.” She added: “We’re really excited about that.”

Stay Up-To-Date on Healthcare Innovations

Recruitment efforts are helped not only by responding to the movements of competitors, but even more so by outpacing them. Gaining insight into new services that employees might be most attracted to will allow people leaders to do just that.

“The pace of benefits just seems to be accelerating,” Ferega said. “Technology innovations, workforce needs change must faster, and so staying up-to-date on them is a job in and of itself.”

Ferega observed the rise in telehealth during the pandemic. Employers who got in early on that benefit put themselves a cut above everyone else at a high point of worker anxiety. 

“Now there’s a much greater acceptance of receiving care in a virtual environment, and it’s becoming even more of a preference,” Ferega said. “What that is leading to is the emergence of solutions like virtual primary care”—something Accolade offers its partners, as a matter of fact. Ferega says that such a benefit closes equity gaps by making care that much more accessible. 

Ultimately, these pieces of advice, should they be followed, can all work to enhance the employee/employer relationship, which people managers and those above them on the company ladder must value greatly, says Rosa. 

“You want people to choose your organization,” he said. Rosa added that “a powerful value proposition” is being able to provide not just the worker but their families with the best healthcare possible. Doing so will get them “feeling better,” he said, and bring about “the best outcomes.” 

With all the tools at the disposal of HR personnel, including platforms like Accolade, they can feel more empowered to deliver on that value proposition than at any point in recent memory. It’s a good thing they’re in that position, too. Afterall, as Ferega put it, benefits leaders are “the change makers.”

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Accolade, for sponsoring this webinar.

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.