Meeting the Needs of a Workforce at Every Life Stage

A diverse workforce calls for a comprehensive benefits package that meets a wide range of needs, and today’s workplace is more varied than ever. With employees spanning Gen Z through Baby Boomers, workers bring different priorities, goals, and expectations shaped by where they are in life.Designing effective benefits today means building in flexibility and choice so employees can be supported at every stage of their careers and personal lives. During an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s Chicago half-day benefits conference, experts broke down best practices. “Depending on where you are in your life, maybe you value child care, or maybe you’re older and you don’t need that, and you’re looking for a subsidized gym membership. Or maybe you need neither of those, and you’re just hoping to get a little help with public transportation,” said Athar Siddiqee, VP, global total rewards at Micron Technologies. Given the differences of workers within the workplace, from life stage to location, options matter. “We introduced a flexible benefits plan in India, and it’s been just a huge hit. Think of it as a menu of various options, and you have a pool of dollars that you can use towards choosing the benefits that are right for you,” said Siddiqee.  A newer addition to the benefits space, beyond traditional health insurance and retirement options, is financial wellness. Simply offering a 401(k) is no longer enough, says Crystal Chen, senior director of total rewards at Westinghouse Electric Company. “It’s more than just offering the benefits for employees to access, but also [making] sure they have the confidence to make the decisions related to financial planning,” Chen said. Those financial needs shift across life changes, so guidance matters. The organization offers both open enrollment webinars and one-on-one support, says Chen. While finances are the leading cause of stress in the workplace, says Jon Simon, VP of sales at CareBenefits by Care.com, caregiving is the close runner-up. “We’ve seen an explosion in the cost of care recently, and a significant portion of the population now has caregiving responsibilities, whether it’s school-age children, aging parents, pets, or even for yourself,” he said. “That’s preventing people from being physically, emotionally, and certainly mentally present at work. Employers are recognizing that there are policy conversations around normalizing responsibilities that employees bear, but also connecting employees with different resources and benefits to support them on their caregiving journey.”Moderator Patricia Garland, adjunct instructor at Loyola University of Chicago, cited some of Simon’s research “that shows that about 75% of employees are caregivers in some sense of the word, but only about 35% identify themselves that way.” That stigma stems from the creeping 24/7 impact caregiving can have on a person’s life, intruding on their professional and personal identity. It’s also partially gendered, with more male caregivers now in the workforce, not because more men are doing the caregiving, but because women are increasingly leaving the workforce due to it, leading to approximately $300K in lifetime income loss, even for those who eventually return. Normalizing openness and flexibility about caregiving in the workplace is key to retention, Simon says, encouraging employers to talk about caregiving not in clinical terms but more as another important and respectable responsibility that is, in turn, supported by workplace benefits. It should not signal “lack of commitment” to the job.  Panelists spoke about "Inclusive Benefits Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce"For larger international corporations, benefits may need to be customized to suit specific cultures. For example, not all cultures are comfortable talking to a stranger on an EAP line, and some may feel better supported by family at home in a multigenerational household, Siddiqee said. But some young single people in those countries had been feeling totally isolated due to Covid, so Micron deployed “TMAs” or “team member advocates,” on-site licensed therapists to boost the company’s wellness portfolio. Keeping Employees Informed and EngagedProviding a great roster of benefits is one challenge; effectively communicating those offerings to employees is another. “We've leveraged some technology to be able to make personalized personas that represent different employee groups that can resonate with our employees to be able to talk about the experiences with our benefits in a way that will be relatable to them, in a way that is more tailored toward their experience with the benefits,” said Joshua Lemon, global senior director, head of total rewards, Resideo. A persona is a representation of a significant segment of workers, such as a young, family-focused office professional or a single factory worker nearing retirement, says Lemon. Specific case studies can make the flexibility of benefits feel both tangible and attainable. Technology can also help employers learn which benefits are the best fit for their workforce, and gauge effective deployment of packages. “[You should be] leveraging data for the power [of] detecting risk of rising cost, for detecting conditions that you need to manage, for detecting the various ways that your life stages and generational workforces might want to attack the benefits, and how they’re using their benefits today,” said Tom Sondergeld, senior director of analysis, research & solutions, enterprise employers at Truven. As generations intersect, they face various life-change challenges at different times. “We have to use the data to drive our communication strategy, and the way we design our benefits today, because one size fits all doesn’t work anymore.” Data offers a holistic approach to understanding a whole person and their specific needs: from pharmacy to short-term disability and beyond. Then, the human HR representatives, not the computer, can interpret it to better communicate what benefits would be most useful to them. Sondergeld cautions against using AI to analyze PHI (personal health information). “You have to be very careful because AI doesn’t have morals. It will go after whatever it needs to go after, unless you give it strict boundaries and a cage. And it’s totally discoverable,” he said, referring to its less-than-stellar ability to keep private information truly private. Direct feedback from employees is also essential. “For internal resources, we look at more than just benefits information, but look at all the employee cycles. For example, engagement surveys, exit interviews, and also we do pulse surveys, making sure we proactively ask people how they feel about the program,” Chen said. “A lot of times people don’t speak up unless they encounter some challenges using the program, so we try to use those opportunities to solicit some positive feedback [too].” Lemon suggests using “conjoint surveys,” which solicit anonymous but highly personal feedback from employees, encouraging them to choose among or rank certain current or potential benefit offerings to provide an honest look at what is most valuable to them. “It helps you balance the needs of your organization broadly in a balanced approach, because you can then go back and review that data to say, ‘How am I serving different employees at different demographics and different generations? Where are the biggest needs, and what would be a good way to allocate the limited resources that you have?’ It’s one of the things we’ve still been benefiting from a year later.” Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)