Better, faster, and more efficient systems are always the goal of managers leading a team or corporate environment. The same is true for HR managers who struggle with the most efficient ways to deliver benefits and better engage with employees.

A new survey shows that employers are doing just that and have increased their spending on benefits-related technology in the past five years. In fact, according to the Guardian Workplace Benefits Study, 50 percent of employers expect further increases in spending over the next three years.

Demographics seem to be playing an important role in the decision-making. Responding to millennials' preference for intuitive and personalized engagement, 75 percent of employers are beginning to improve end-to-end user experiences and are looking at improving self-service platforms (as compared to 61 percent who were thinking about doing so back in 2014).

“Our lives increasingly revolve around new technologies and digitization, and this study confirms that benefits technology is reshaping how employers think about their benefits strategy,” said Marc Costantini, executive vice president, Commercial and Government Markets, at Guardian. “A multi-generational workforce—along with mounting pressures on employers to contain costs, simplify their benefits, and stay compliant—are prompting employers to make this a priority.”

The research, conducted last spring, consisted of two online surveys: one among 2,000 benefits decision-makers and another among 1,700 workers. The latter showed that three in four millennials want education and access to their workplace benefits to be easier. Also, 42 percent use artificial intelligence to find answers to their health-benefits–related questions.

On the employer side, 58 percent say managing employee benefits has become increasingly complex. Yet 67 percent of employers with digital capacity say enrolling employees is very efficient, compared with 44 percent of paper-based employers. This has also increased spending needs of employers, according to the study.

Overall, with the increasing need for digital benefits adoption and more benefits-related technology, employers will require greater support in developing these strategies. According to the study, “Identifying and implementing more holistic human capital management (HCM) technology solutions will be a growing priority for U.S. employers in the next five years.”

From: BenefitsPro

Instant Insights /

Millennials Driving Employer Adoption of Benefits Tech

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