Leveraging Data to Create a Personalized Employee Benefits Strategy

Employee benefits strategies are swiftly changing in response to the evolving needs of today’s workforce, and employers understand that they need to take a closer look at their benefit plans and ensure they align with the demands of constantly changing work environments.

Talking about employee benefits strategies, historically they have focused mainly on retirement offerings and traditional healthcare. But things have changed. Today’s employees’ aspirations and requirements are different and they expect a more flexible and personalized array of benefits offerings. They need to know when and how those offerings are communicated to them. Therefore, benefit plans need to be a lot more innovative and appealing compared to those in the past to attract and retain the best talent.

Intelligent Intervention

Now we talked about personalizing benefit plans, but why should you do it? An example can help clarify why personalization is key to improved experience of any sort. We all turn to our phones for so many needs. What we don’t always realize is that these devices not just provide information but also collect it. That information is used to personalize the brands we interact with, the ads we see, and the news we consume.

The employee benefits space is seeing similar data-driven personalization with smart tools and products that offer personalized benefits. Using predictive analytics, data mining, and machine learning, organizations have begun to analyze current information and predict future events. Employers understand that personalized health experiences, pretty much similar to what all of us are seeing in the consumer marketing space, will motivate positive behavioral change.

Tailored Plan Designs

The insights and information gleaned from data analytics can help you refine your offerings, set up tailored plans that range from low coverage and high risk to high coverage and low risk while effectively packaging dental, vision, health, critical illness, and accident coverage based on the combination of options employees need.

Most HR leaders say that healthcare benefits are the most important benefit they provide. They understand that helping guide employees toward better benefit selections and providing a range of options is critical to increasing employee engagement. Data analytics can also be used to help employers strengthen their enrollment and communication campaigns to provide education and raise employees’ awareness.

Insights from cost factors and plan usage can also help employers know how and where to prioritize their time and resources. You can take a closer look at which plans and plan designs are working well and which aren’t as effective. Such insights will help not only the human resources department but also the finance department’s projections.

Improved Outcomes

The whole idea of leveraging data to understand employees’ needs, mitigate costs and encourage appropriate utilization of benefits is the beginning of a coordinated employee healthcare journey. The actionable insights not only help deliver meaningful and personalized experiences for employees, but also help employers understand the business value of employee health.

Navigating a benefits strategy can be overwhelming. Finding the ‘’right’’ way to drive high-quality, cost-effective, and accessible care is very often challenging. Picking up random metrics such as claims data is not enough to make decisions about driving improved employee health. The structure of the work, employee demographics and direction of the company are some of the crucial inputs that need to be analyzed to create a differentiated, high-value benefits strategy and create measurable impact.

Therefore, it is crucial for employers to use healthcare analytics to offer quality benefits to their employees and keep healthcare costs in check. To learn how a FHIR-enabled Data Activation Platform can help you revamp your employee benefits strategy, click here