PARTNERS IN WELL-BEING: HOW PEOS CAN HELP SUPPORT WORKSITE EMPLOYEE WELLNESS

Benefits management in today’s rapidly evolving landscape can be challenging. In fact, according to Guardian’s recent report, The Power of PEO Partnerships, 63% of businesses with less than 50 worksite employees strongly agree that managing benefits has become more complex.

Yet this space is also ripe with opportunity. Especially as worksite employees nationwide often struggle with their mental, physical, and financial health, PEOs have the chance to help make a real difference for employers and their workforce—supporting healthy, engaged, and productive employees.

Here’s how to get started.

WHY WELL-BEING MATTERS

Serving as effective strategic partners and supporting a culture of wellness starts with understanding the well-being challenges facing today’s worksite employees.

According to Guardian’s latest Mind, Body, and Wallet® report, just one in three full-time working Americans said they’re doing well. In particular, self-reported financial wellness is significantly lower than in the past. Compounding concern is the reality that mental, physical, and financial health don’t exist in silos but rather affect one another.

For PEOs, knowing the primary concerns facing worksite employees and how the mind, body, and wallet intersect can be foundational. All efforts to support employee well-being should stem from this understanding.

THE ROLE OF WORKPLACE BENEFITS

With an understanding of the state of employee well-being today, PEOs should then consider the role that benefit offerings have in meeting these needs. Many will find that when the right benefits are offered, they’ll see corresponding improvement in recruitment, retention, engagement, and overall business success.

Of course, traditional benefits such as life, disability, vision, and dental insurance are essential offerings. Making them available to worksite employees can directly impact employee wellness, and they are key elements of any PEO’s benefit offerings. Yet, given the interconnected and evolving well-being needs of today’s worksite employees, PEOs may also need to go a step further.

For instance, financial protection products like supplemental health insurance can go a long way towards addressing wallet-related stressors for worksite employees. According to Guardian research, just over half of workers believe their health insurance would be enough to help cover any major medical event that may occur. To fill this gap, supplemental health insurance offerings such as accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, or cancer insurance can help provide a benefit payment directly to employees when they need it most. Plus, some supplemental health policies also offer a wellness reimbursement simply for completing a covered wellness screening or procedure.

Then there are the millions of worksite employees who may also have caregiving responsibilities. These caregivers aren’t just becoming a larger portion of the worksite employee population; they’re having to spend more time on care-related responsibilities—up from 9 to 26 hours a week since 2020.

Whether trying to manage a doctor’s appointment for an aging parent with complex medical needs or sourcing backup childcare for younger children, these caregiving responsibilities may lead to decreased productivity, lower employee engagement, and an increased likelihood of a worksite employee needing to take a leave of absence from work.

While there are a variety of HR policies that can be implemented to help support caregivers, employee benefits have a role to play, too. In fact, some carriers have begun to include caregiver support services—including a caregiving concierge, peer support network, or digital planning tools—within employer-provided insurance policies. Their impact is clear; data suggests that when employees use these services, 90% reported being more engaged and less stressed at work, 66% missed fewer meetings, and 33% were able to avoid taking a leave of absence from work.

DRIVING ENGAGEMENT

Once PEOs are confident that they are offering the right benefits to help meet evolving well-being needs, the next step is making sure worksite employees engage with their wellness benefits.

With more than half of employers saying they would be interested in a single platform through which all wellness-related benefits could be made available, it’s clear that access and simplicity are essential. Many carriers are working to answer this call, and PEOs should engage their carriers to find out what digital hubs or resources are available.

While technology is a powerful tool at a PEO’s disposal, don’t overlook the impact of in-person engagement. Whether a reminder of wellness benefits perks tied to key awareness months or sharing testimonials from colleagues on how they were impacted from their wellness benefits, ongoing benefits education and engagement is critical. When benefits are top-of-mind, they are more likely to be used.

MEETING THE MOMENT

As worksite employees continue to face well-being challenges, PEOs can play a key role on their wellness journey, especially when working alongside partners who can bring to bear a carefully curated and integrated ecosystem of mind, body, and wallet solutions.

By taking time to understand what matters to worksite employees, offering the right benefits, and supporting engagement efforts, PEOs can help make a difference.

Get started today.