Nurturing Your Workforce With Inclusive Benefits

BY Erika Riley | May 09, 2023

Health care, retirement, and leave benefits are still the most important benefits for the workforce in 2022, according to the most recent findings by SHRM. Companies ranked each benefit as more essential to offer now than before the pandemic.

But benefits aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Not every employee will utilize or need the same benefits, and many might not even know about the benefits that are available to them. 

“Another big takeaway from this report and previous conversations... is that the emphasis is on making those offerings as inclusive as possible and personalized when they can be,” said Lydia Dishman, senior editor for growth and engagement at Fast Company.

Dishman moderated the panel “How Inclusive Benefits Can Help Attract and Retain a Diverse Workforce,” during From Day One’s November Virtual Conference, “Making Your Company a Magnet for a Diverse Workforce.” The panel featured leaders from various industries, including fertility, wellness, and human resources.

What Employees Want From Their Employers

The panelists expressed that they’re seeing a wide range of employee concerns regarding health and well-being. Often these concerns overlap. In addition to working, many employees are raising children, taking care of other family members, grieving, and going through life changes. For these reasons, it’s vital to offer a diverse benefits package to satisfy all employees’ different needs.

“It is critical that employers really message the support for all of these aspects of a person’s life,” said Lizzie Wright, Director of Consumer Success at Carrot Fertility, a company that employers can use to outsource fertility benefits. “So bringing an inclusive benefit, like fertility, as an example, says, ‘I’m not just going to give you money to support this, but I’m going to support the emotional component of this journey.’”

In addition to signaling care and compassion through benefits, employees also want to feel understood by their employers and free to share challenging parts of their lives, said Singleton Beato, global executive vice president and chief DEI officer of McCann Worldgroup. For example, she wants women to feel comfortable discussing their challenges, whether they’re experiencing infertility or going through menopause.

“The emotional state of our folks has become something that we talk about as leaders and that we focus on,” Beato said. “We focus on creating the conditions internally in each of our offices where employees feel that support.”

Thus, creating a diverse benefits package involves the less “concrete” benefits employees might expect—like flexible schedules, compassion, and positive work culture—in addition to the more measurable pieces of benefit packages.

“I think the opportunity we have is through policies, culture, and tangible benefits,” said Jessica Kim, co-founder and CEO of ianacare. “You have a very clear and visible way of saying what you actually want to bridge and what you want to support.”

Another way to build support and inclusive benefits into the company’s culture is by empowering managers to be empathetic listeners and have the tools to help employees, even if that means directing them to somebody who might be able to help in a better capacity. 

“They are that source that people go to. And so it’s really about—for us—equipping managers with what they need, because we’re asking so much of them,” said McBride. “We’re not making clinicians out of them.”

Deciding What Benefits to Offer

Supporting employees also means offering help on the financial side beyond a salary and healthcare plan. Carol McBride, vice president of benefits at Mr. Cooper, says financial wellness workshops have been very successful with employees. Most of them have questions about the economic downturn. 

“People are trying to figure out, ‘How do I emerge after tapping into my retirement, when I didn’t want to?’ Or, ‘How do I just get started when I’m living paycheck to paycheck?’” McBride said.

Many companies are extending the types of benefits they offer to benefit a wide range of employees. For example, Beato explained that McCann Worldgroup provides benefits for pet insurance and elder care.

“What’s important is that you’re demonstrating that you respect the whole experience of your employee,” Beato said. “So by adding that benefit, you’re saying, ‘Look, it doesn’t matter if I don’t have a cat or a dog; I know that you have one. And it’s important to you.’”

The panelists from top left, moderator Lydia Dishman, Singleton Beato, Lizzie Wright, Jessica Kim, and Carol McBride (photo by From Day One)

Employers can also benefit from analyzing their employees’ demographics to understand better how they can help the most people. However, Kim cautioned against grouping people of specific demographics together and assuming they have the same needs across the board. She explained that, if “diversity” refers to reaching a number or a statistic, “inclusion” is the mindset of actually accommodating everybody.

“When we think about diversity, we tend to center around the checkboxes, such as gender, age, and race, and we tend to build benefits around these assumptions that we think these types of employees need. And we’re obsessed with tracking it and making sure we have the right proportion,” said Kim. “But instead, we need to recognize that so much of people’s lives are untrackable,” involving “different lifestyles, family-care situations, socioeconomic factors, [and] life stages that don’t always match your age.”

Mr. Cooper has used analytics and data to broaden the census files they keep for each employee and to create different “personas” that help define employees’ benefit needs. For example, personas can help differentiate people without kids from people with kids, people with dual incomes from people without dual incomes, students from non-students, renters from owners, and more.

This data can help McBride and her colleagues get the right benefits for the right employees and make them aware of their options.

“I may not get to improve my benefit line-up, but I sure can elevate and talk about and advertise what we’ve got,” McBride said.

Looking at some statistics can also be helpful when uncovering groups that often go unnoticed. For example, Kim shared that about 20% of workers identify as full-time caregivers to family members, meaning they provide care for 20 or more hours per week on top of a full-time job. But these people are often overlooked in the discussion of benefits.

Several panelists spoke about Employee Resource Groups, or ERGs, helping their companies find where they need to improve benefits, either by offering new benefits or by advertising existing ones. For example, a working parents’ ERG might raise the need for more extensive daycare options. 

“Use ERGs and BRGs to bubble up key needs and concerns, because there’s a trust and authenticity already built in there. [They] can be a pulse of what’s happening beyond surveys and multiple-choice questions,” Wright said. “Then amplify those issues with specific town halls.”

No matter how employers navigate their benefits offerings, one thing is clear: failing to offer a diverse package of benefits is to miss out in the talent race. 

“People want to work somewhere where they feel like all these aspects of their lives are welcomed,” Kim said, “[where] it’s all integrated, so they can do their best work.”

Erika Riley is a Maryland-based freelance writer.

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They can make that a reality by creating the kind of experience that re-engages workers with their leaders, their colleagues, and their roles. How can employers be intentional about the workplace as a welcoming community and place where workers can fulfill their need for connection and purpose, inclusion and belonging?Encouraging In-person InteractionIt can be hard to encourage in-person interaction, even when back in the office, when employees are plugged into a post-pandemic productivity mindset of sitting at a desk, powering through tasks, and then going home. Providing team leaders with additional support can help them facilitate the organic in-office interactions that so many of us have been missing.“We’re trying to guide leaders with tools. 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Matthew Koehler | November 20, 2024

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Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | November 14, 2024