3 challenges HR leaders are facing in today’s digital benefits world

January 31, 2022 11:42 AM

HR leaders may have their hands full when it comes to providing benefits that meet employees needs, but HR tech solutions are helping fill some important gaps.

Investing in HR tech that can act as a one-stop-shop for employees to easily access and understand their benefits can be a significant advantage for employers, while offering workers the modern approach they crave.

“The way employees access benefits has totally changed,” says Brian Cosgray, CEO and co-founder of benefits platform, Elevate. “Overall, employees want digital access. Digital offerings are going to go up and down the benefit stack and we're seeing that play out in the market.”

Elevate is offering this type of experience with an intuitive dashboard where employees can access all of their offerings and make changes to their HSAs, commuter benefits, dependent care assistance, and more.

While streamlining the HR and benefits process is helpful for remote-first workforces, the growing demand for digital solutions is going to present some challenges for employers, specifically those who rely heavily on an on-site workforce, Cosgray says. With demand for a revamped process on the rise, Cosgray identifies the hurdles HR leaders may face in this workplace evolution.

HR leaders will have a hard time filling roles that aren’t remote

Organizations are going to be hard pressed to find potential employees who are willing to spend five days a week in an office — and for offices that can’t always be remote, that’s a big problem, Cosgray says.

“One of the biggest challenges is it's harder to attract and retain on-site workers — the people that are actually working in a restaurant, retail, factories or in transportation,” Cosgray says. “As people think about what kind of job they are going to do, one that offers the flexibility of being able to work from home and still get your work done is going to be hugely attractive — particularly if the employee has other obligations, like caregiving.”

Employers can expect increasing turnover if they don’t offer benefits that meet employees’ individual needs

Regardless of where an employee is clocking in, they want individualized programs that help them at all stages of their life, Cosgray says. Some employers have really stepped up to this challenge, while others are falling behind.

Read More: 10 best cities to find a job

“You have so many different generations, populations and diversity of life situations in the workforce,” he says. “We’re in the business of offering employer sponsored benefit accounts. The main ones are health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts, and health reimbursement arrangements. But what we’re seeing is a need for what we call lifestyle accounts and those are any sort of employer sponsored spending account for a specific purpose — everything from a $500 vacation fund for employees to accounts to support gender transition costs.”

Employers who fail to embrace the modernization of tech and benefits are setting themselves up to fail

A lot of the technology and enrollment systems many employers still rely on were built before everything went mobile, Cosgray says, and many employers are still relying on these old systems. But being stuck in the technological stone age is going to end up costing employers more in the long run when they are continuously burdened with turnover costs.

Read More: No such thing as overprepared: 3 retirement tips for Gen Z employees to consider today

“The idea that people are still going to be doing in person enrollment meetings or filling out paper forms and faxing them in, that's just not a modern experience,” he says. “When you're going to offer something to employees, it has to save them time. And that’s where you are going to see younger companies win in the talent war. We keep hearing from the HR buyer that they’re less concerned about 20 years of company history, as they are with having better and more modern technology, because that's what employees expect today.”