How this leader built a flexible and personalized benefit strategy

• Key insight: Discover how personalized, wellness-centric benefits drive retention and performance.
• Expert quote: Dunja Vujovic (TextNow): Supporting employees "as whole humans" increases engagement and improves culture.
• Supporting data: 65% of employees would trade current benefits for more choice, per Aon survey.
• Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

This is part of a series about tackling 2026 and beyond with better benefits. Read more from this series here. 

Traditional benefits like healthcare and retirement will always be important, but they only scratch the surface of employees' expectations. 

"Employees expect benefits that help them live better lives, not just work better," says Dunja Vujovic, VP of people and culture at phone service provider TextNow. "When people feel supported as whole humans, not just employees, engagement increases and [creates] a different culture."

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At TextNow, offerings like flexible working arrangements, a learning and development credit and a lifestyle and wellness credit — for anything from a new office chair to classes — are some of the ways the company supports the diverse needs of its workforce. Setting employees up to use benefits how they see fit makes them feel personalized, which is a growing request among workers: According to a survey by professional services firm Aon, 65% of employees would trade their current offerings for more choice.  

Benefit leaders should look for offerings that create that agency for employees, and listen to feedback on the benefits that make a difference to them, says Vujovic. For example, following employee survey feedback about the importance of mental health, TextNow has doubled down on this area, hosting expert-led lunch and learns that provide education and actionable advice. It also has a mental health ERG, of which the COO is the executive sponsor.   

The company also seeks employee feedback about benefits through focus groups and stay and exit interviews. This, along with routinely benchmarks its offerings, has led to a lineup of offerings that improve employee and business outcomes. 

"We see better retention, lower burnout and higher performance, simply because people aren't just operating from a place of survival," Vujovic says. "They are able to operate from [a place of] growth, and they appreciate [a company] who invests more in that."  

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Two-way communication

Vujovic keeps employees well informed on benefit details with various methods of communication, such as educational videos, written materials and focus groups, and brings in the company's benefits broker for assistance. When it comes to the volume of communication, she believes that less is more.

"Once you start communicating about everything and anything on a daily basis, people don't pay attention," she explains. "There's a lot of communication coming every day to each employee, so we look strategically at how we position this for people to hear us."

Vujovic also shares data with employees, such as previous-year benefits usage and what current and proposed offerings cost at the employer and employee level, helping workers understand benefit decisions and see the true worth of their compensation packages. 

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To ensure benefits communication is seen as a two-way street by employees, Vujovic urges all leaders — not just those in HR — to invite conversations about people's challenges and needs.    

"Leadership needs to be more involved," she says. "It needs to be more humanized [so that you] understand what your people are going through and what they are missing."