Why Personalization is Key to Benefit Tech Success

Employee Age Distribution in Select Occupations Chart

 

Employees are in the driver’s seat and they want a personalized benefits experience. Benefit tech can deliver the benefits experience employees seek when paired with appropriate health plans. However, personalization is key. Adopting programs, plans, and tech and forcing employees to fit the mold doesn’t work—it’s not engaging, and employees aren’t wasting their time. Putting the needs of employees first and finding solutions that speak to those individual needs is what’s needed. 

 

In this post, we look at the current benefit tech landscape, what personalization means to today’s employees, why personalization is essential to benefit tech success, and how to connect your clients to benefit tech solutions and all the advantages they offer.

 

The Current Benefit Tech Landscape & Why It Matters
The rapid growth and expansion of benefit tech has made almost anything possible, or so it seems. So, what kind of technology are we talking about? 


Though we haven’t gone full AI (artificial intelligence) mode yet, we have seen an abundance of truly innovative, and pleasingly effective, technology. For example, there are now apps (tech and mobile) to improve mindfulness, resilience, and financial well-being. There are also point solutions and engagement platforms.

 
Some of the most intriguing tech solutions are those that focus on a disease or condition. The purpose of this tech is to use technology, personalized recommendations, real-time support, and individualized data to facilitate behavior change. 


Basically, the thought behind such tech is that behavior can be altered through the delivery of tools, support, and the right information at the right time.


At the end of the day, benefit tech has created a “benefit experience”— day-to-day living supported by personalized resources designed to help individuals with their needs that take the traditional experience with benefits (medical, life, disability) to new, and more effective, heights.

 
Personalization is no longer customizing emails with individual names. Instead, it’s packaging the right benefits with the right benefit tech. For example, a person suffering from kidney disease may elect a medical plan to meet their needs, then use an app to track their diet. On a day-to-day basis, they’d be able to tell if how they were eating was helping or hurting their condition, and they’d be able to access resources and help when they need it through their app. 

 

Why Your Clients Should Consider Personalization 
It’s easy to intuit the benefits of personalization when you consider how benefit tech can be incorporated into our day-to-day lives, and as one might expect, research supports our intuition. 

 

General Benefits of Personalization in Healthcare  
Allowing employees to customize health plans has its benefits. Two major benefits are:

•    Higher employee satisfaction—Benefits have a major impact on employee satisfaction, and because it’s significantly cheaper to retain an employee (the cost of replacing an employee can be up to 400% of their annual salary1), it’s worth investing in benefit options that make employees want to stick around. Retaining top talent also means you have the staff you need to be a leader in your industry. 

•    High worker productivity—Health problems are known to reduce productivity at work. Letting employees select plans that meet their needs protects against drops in productivity, ideally because the plans are meeting their needs, and as a result, they’re able to focus at work. For example, a 2013 study showed that a 5% reduction in health risks is associated with a .75% decrease in absenteeism, a 2.4% decrease in “presenteeism” (i.e. time spent at work characterized by a lack of productivity), and a .25% increase in work performance.2 

Benefits of Personalized Tech 
Personalized tech brings its own set of benefits. Two important ones include:

•    Lower healthcare costs— A benefits experience –provided by personalized tech solutions—makes individuals healthier. For example, benefit tech solutions are already improving the health of workers with diabetes, which is arguably the highest healthcare spend. The chart below shows the average reduction in HbA1c for workers using a benefit tech solution. Clients that connect their employees to benefit technology can potentially save thousands over several years as employee health improves. 

 

Average HbA1c Reduction

Average HbA1c Reduction Chart

Source: https://www.livongo.com/impact.html#Clinical_Outcomes

 

•    Better experiences— Most of us know someone who uses or who has used an app to help them reach a health goal or manage some aspect of their health. The reality is, for many people, an app is like a healthcare partner—it somehow manages to take on the feel of a support person which makes the entire experience of using it to improve our health more fun.

 

Why Personalization is Key to Benefit Tech Success

The benefit tech most likely to be enjoyed and used by employees is personalized, and it must be because it needs to capture the “benefit experience” today’s workers are looking for—an experience in which health plan benefits are enhanced using tech solutions (like apps) that support, inform, manage, and otherwise help employees improve their health on a day-to-day basis. 

 

No two people are the alike and no two peoples’ needs are the same; this means benefit tech cannot be identical—it must be personalized or customizable or it must cater to groups of people struggling with similar needs (e.g., diabetes, obesity, anxiety, etc.).  

 

The bottom line? The “benefits experience” is a highly personalized and internalized experience facilitated using benefit tech; as such, it requires customizable technology.

 

Connecting Clients to Benefit Tech and the “Benefits Experience”

The benefit tech landscape grows every day. So, it’s hard for employers to keep up, let alone select what they need. As a broker, you have a golden opportunity to introduce them to benefit tech and architect a solution. 

•    Help clients sort and select options –Personalization starts with an understanding of the target audience. Choosing the right benefit tech solutions requires your client to understand the needs of their audience. You can use the information they provide about their demographics to select a variety of options for your client that pair well with their existing plans. 

•    Help clients update their benefit tech regularly—Employers need to update technologies regularly to keep the experience fresh for employees. You can scout potential future solutions and introduce them when the time is right.

•    Coach clients on how to communicate about benefit tech—even with benefit tech, employers will still face the challenge of telling employees about the tech and presenting the tech in ways that resonate with individual employees, thus prompting them to use the resource. You’ll want to encourage:

•    A high-tech and high-touch approach—Some in-person communication will still be necessary to introduce employees to benefit tech. Encourage clients to communicate about benefit tech using online (email, office chat apps, HR mobile apps, etc.) and in-person methods. 

•    Customized communication—Like the “benefits experience,” communication must also be personalized. Pushing out general communications only works if you catch employees at the right time and in the right frame of mind. Communication about benefits must be more personalized. It must connect employees to the information they need, when they need it.

 

From Apps to Advocates, Everyone has a Partner. Who do You Rely On?

Employees use benefit tech solutions like apps to help them manage their health. 
Your clients rely on you to connect them with plans that give their workers a personalized experience, to help them educate their workers about benefit plan choices, and to equip them with more options that meet the diverse needs of their workforce. 

But, who do you rely on? 

Clarity helps brokers manage client demands. Offering everything from COBRA administration services to transformative products like the Ready for Life HSA, Clarity Benefit Solutions has your back. Learn more about their broker services today.

1.    https://www.tlnt.com/what-was-leadership-thinking-the-shockingly-high-cost-of-employee-turnover/
2.    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130409090918.htm