As companies compete for talent with increasingly generous benefits packages, many are discovering a frustrating truth: robust offerings alone don’t guarantee employee satisfaction or utilization.

“You can have millions of programs available to your employee population, but if they’re not educated, if they’re not aware, we’re not going to see any value,” said Preeti Nadendla, senior global benefits partner at Marqeta. Nadendla spoke during a From Day One webinar about “Prioritizing Benefits That Drive Impact for Your Employees: A Successful Case Study,” in conversation with Britt Barney, manager of customer success at Northstar.

Nadendla’s perspective comes from navigating the complex landscape of global benefits at Marqeta, an Oakland, CA., based financial technology company that provides backend systems for payment card programs. With approximately 850 employees across the U.S., UK, Canada, and Poland, Marqeta exemplifies the challenges faced by growing international companies.

When Nadendla joined Marqeta two years ago, she found herself in a scenario familiar to many benefits professionals: excellent offerings that went underutilized because employees simply didn’t understand them. "The sheer volume of benefits information was overwhelming," she recalled. “Employees weren’t utilizing them effectively and didn’t understand the value of what was being offered, which created a lot of frustration,” she said. 

As the sole benefits professional at the time, Nadendla methodically rebuilt the company’s approach from the ground up. She transformed vendor relationships from transactional to collaborative partnerships, establishing regular meetings and leveraging vendors to help educate employees. 

With open enrollment looming just months after her arrival, Nadendla orchestrated multiple virtual education sessions with partner vendors, created accessible FAQs, and ensured recorded sessions were available across global time zones. The results were immediate–employees began actively engaging with previously underutilized benefits, reducing confusion and frustration while increasing the return on the company's benefits investment.

From Theory to Practice: Benefits Strategy in Real Markets

Nadendla’s approach to measuring success goes beyond typical utilization metrics to focus on meaningful understanding within employee healthcare networks.

“For me, it’s not just utilization but the actual engagement and frequency,” she said. "Working with a mental health benefits partner, we want to track the frequency of interactions. Are they doing only one coaching session, or is there an uptick in therapy sessions? Is it only a certain subset of employees using it and not the entire organization?”

This nuanced approach to measurement extends to the company’s cross-border benefits strategy as well. While many companies struggle to provide equitable benefits across different regulatory environments, Nadendla has developed a philosophy where benefits should be “globally competitive but locally relevant.”

Northstar, the financial wellness platform, provides personalized guidance to employees through dedicated advisors, helping them navigate their benefits options and broader financial decisions. 

As Barney of Northstar says, the platform focuses on building relationships. “In my 13 years of working in financial services, there isn’t a single question that doesn’t tie back to money. So from a benefits perspective, we'll talk about budgeting and saving for emergencies, paying down debt and having a family retirement, all of those types of things. But we’ll also talk about which health plan you should choose,” she said. 

Marqeta and Northstar put Nadendla’s principles to the test when addressing issues within the UK’s pension program. Rather than relying solely on consulting partners, Nadendla sought direct input from Northstar's UK-based financial advisor to understand the employee experience. “I wanted to connect with the advisor and understand, ‘This is what we’re thinking, these are the options available—as an employee, how does this impact me?’” she said.

After implementing these changes, she organized an educational session with the advisor which drove significant engagement. The success of this approach informed the company’s recent expansion of financial wellness benefits to Canada, demonstrating how education-driven implementation can succeed across borders.

Removing Barriers to Benefits Utilization

To truly understand what employees need from their benefits packages, Nadendla implemented a more focused approach to gathering feedback.

“I personally don’t like the fact that the benefit survey questions are part of a larger survey, and just have a few benefits questions,” she said. “I personally would do an entire benefits survey which is dedicated to benefits.”

A more targeted feedback strategy extends to working directly with employee resource groups to understand specific challenges different populations face. The approach has revealed a critical insight: employees often hesitate to use financial wellness programs, such as Northstar, due to privacy concerns.

Nadendla addresses this by emphasizing confidentiality in all financial communications. “This is our employees, one on one, conversations with their financial advisors. And we don’t have visibility into it. It’s confidential, and it’s 100% up to them on how much they want to share,” she said. This transparency has significantly increased utilization of financial wellness benefits, particularly among employees who were previously concerned about sharing personal financial information with their employer.

Nadendla’s education-first approach proved particularly valuable when adding after-tax contributions to the company’s 401(k) plan offerings. Rather than simply announcing the new feature, they partnered with Northstar to host educational sessions that explained both the mechanics and the long-term financial implications. “We wanted employees to understand how the enhancement could help them, the pros and cons, why someone would do it and why someone wouldn’t,” she said. 

As Marqeta continues to evolve its benefits strategy, Nadendla remains committed to a holistic approach that addresses physical, mental, emotional, financial, and social well-being. Her focus on staged implementation allows for testing new benefits in specific locations before rolling them out more broadly. “We take a step back and tell our employee population, ‘This is something new we’re rolling out in one location. We’re going to test it and see how it works,’” she said.

Nadendla’s education-first approach offers a valuable framework for ensuring these investments actually enrich employees' livelihoods. “Education is the key to a successful benefits program. That's just our philosophy,” she said. 

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

Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.

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