Lifestyle benefits for employees

What are lifestyle benefits for employees?

Employees are a company's most valuable asset, and investing in their well-being can reap significant rewards for both employees and the organization as a whole. Innovative companies are realizing the impact of shifting resources towards benefits strategies and benefits packages that prioritize choice and flexibility.

Employees are seeking positions with rich employer-sponsored benefits that support their individual needs, demonstrate they are valued, and enhance their experience at work and at home. As such, a personalized, flexible lifestyle benefit for employees is key. Time and time again, flexible benefits have been shown to increase employee engagement across the workplace and help in attracting and retaining top talent.

A 2022 survey jointly conducted by Forma and Radford Data and Analytics demonstrated the value of offering flexible benefits with choice. A benefit set by the employer ranked poorly at 16 out of 17, with 15 options that offer the flexibility to choose the ranking higher. Lifestyle benefits for employees demonstrated +50% more perceived value than a set option by employers.

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Lifestyle benefits are a solution that bridges the gap between what employees desire and what companies typically offer. These benefits are essentially a sum of money given by employers to employees that can be used, within certain parameters, to meet their personal needs. Employers can tailor the account set-up to guide employee spending, covering anything from wellness services to commuting expenses to tuition reimbursement to gym memberships. The choices are unlimited and based on the company's focus for their benefits investment.

The versatility of benefits spending accounts provides advantages for both employers and employees. Employees have the opportunity to select meaningful benefits that align with their lifestyle and needs, while employers can move away from single-solution providers and experience the benefits of endless customization options, inflation-resistant benefits budgets, and the ability to adapt to a changing world.

At Forma, the trend of using flexible benefits strategies has seen an increase. 71% of their customers currently offer a lifestyle spending account, compared to less than 7% in 2020.

Learn more by reading our blog that goes in details on Lifestyle Spending Account pros and cons.

Types of lifestyle benefits

Lifestyle benefits help employers meet employees where they are with personalized benefits at scale. With customizable benefits spending accounts, employers and employees can hand-select the benefits meaningful to them. Our customers have reported up to 80 percent reduction from managing eligible categories. Below is a snapshot of the most popular lifestyle benefits our customers have for their employees:

• Lifestyle
• Wellness
• Work From Home
• Learning
• Family Formation
• Caregiving
• Rewards
• Tuition/Student Loans
• Team Building
• Commuter
• Donation
• Health Check
• Finance
• Food
• Mental Health
• Vision Protection
• Covid
• Pet

Find out what other benefits are available by reading our blog on Lifestyle Spending Account eligible expenses.

‍The ROI of lifestyle benefits

Many businesses have adopted point solutions to cater to specific employee requirements, but this approach has its own set of problems, such as administrative difficulties, usage barriers, high costs, and scalability issues. To overcome these challenges, cutting-edge companies are turning to flexible benefits, which offer a more innovative solution.

Forma conducted a conjoint analysis surveying employees on how they perceived the value of benefits of flexibility and choice. You can access the full report here. This paper is the result of the analysis, specifically demonstrating how much employees appreciate the concept of flexibility and choice when it comes to their benefits. It will show the dollar value that employees place on being able to choose benefits that matter to them.

This is a direct way to show ROI for the dollars our customers are putting into these spending accounts, AKA an easy way for our contacts to be the hero, especially in the eyes of their finance teams!

‍Use case of employee lifestyle benefits

The Tripadvisor HR team was faced with a familiar challenge: the need to support employees' diverse needs on a global scale, while also managing costs and easing administrative burdens placed on an already busy HR team. 

‍Tripadvisor chose to implement an extensive Lifestyle Spending Account (LSA) program. Patti Petrella, Sr. Director of Global Benefits, explained the details of the LSA, stating that it covers “almost everything”. The lifestyle benefits maximize employee choice and alleviate many of the headaches HR administrators face today. From scaling a flexible benefits program for a global workforce to solving point solution fatigue, flexibility has proven successful for Petrella and the team.

Petrella noted, “We had all of our ducks in a row about why and how this would provide ROI. And it has proved out. We leveraged time. Time is valuable and can be translated into dollars. We listened to our employees and are really anticipating what they aren't even asking for yet. We are constantly delighting them and I have to say we delighted them the most with our lifestyle benefit.”

For more information on lifestyle benefits for employees, please <span class="text-style-link text-color-blue" fs-mirrorclick-element="trigger" role="button">schedule a consultation</span> with one of our experts.

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