Employers Recognize Need to Improve Employee Health Experience

Employers are recognizing the need to modernize the employee health experience following research that demonstrates the disconnect between companies’ investment in health benefits and the impact on employee health.

The research—published by League and conducted in partnership with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services—surveyed 238 executives and found that 90% of respondents view employee health benefits as a reflection of the organization’s understanding of the needs of their employees. Since healthcare costs continue to rise, companies are beginning to focus on restructuring health benefits, with 51% of organizations increasing the strategic priority of benefits over the next 3 years.

Although employers are committed to trying to improve health benefits, employees had demonstrated a lack of awareness. According to the research, 58% of survey respondents reported that employees are unaware of the company-provided health benefits that they are entitled to and 63% said employees do not know enough about leveraging their benefits.

“There is a profound disparity between what employers are doing to provide health benefits and what employees are actually getting from these efforts,” Mike Serbinis, chief executive office of League, said in a statement. “To close this gap and improve health outcomes while reducing costs, the entire ecosystem needs to become employee-centric. Employers need to think about how they can streamline the current sea of point solutions with an enterprise health OS and empower employees to proactively manage their health.”

Due to the minimal amount of employee awareness, there are low levels of engagement with health programs. Only 28% of respondents reported that employees engage with all of the benefits that are offered, and only 27% of organizations said that employees use the full range of benefits.

Despite the lack of engagement, 68% of the respondents reported that there are opportunities for the organization to improve their health benefits costs and 68% also are open to changing their employee health care experience, according to the research. As costs continue to rise, employers are placing an emphasis on focusing on this issue.