As the workforce’s needs grow more complex, many companies are responding by expanding their benefits packages. But offering more benefits without a strategy isn’t the solution.
According to new Grokker Innovation Labs research, the number of health and wellbeing point solutions employers offer is set to increase. Eighty-three percent of companies plan to increase their budgets for health and wellbeing programs over the next 12 months. Fifty-seven percent plan to increase the number of point solutions they offer.
However, many are realizing that offering more benefits alone isn’t a silver bullet. Half of employees say that they’re unaware of which wellbeing benefits their employer offers. Because they don’t know what’s available to them, benefits go underutilized.
Grokker CEO Lorna Borenstein recently sat down with Patrice Johnson, Director of Wellbeing and Benefits for MGM Resorts International to talk about this very issue. Through a combination of employee research, vendor partnerships, and data analysis, MGM has been able to address its employees' needs and drive a 71% engagement rate with Grokker.
Here are some key insights from their conversation.
Understanding the workforce
MGM’s strategy starts with understanding its employees and the diverse challenges they face. MGM’s workforce spans five generations, so it needs benefits that address each population.
To understand what their employees are struggling with, MGM does the following:
- Regularly surveys employees on their challenges and whether MGM’s benefits are actually helping them
- Constantly monitors data on benefits costs and utilization to identify opportunities for improvement
- Identifies trends — for example, MGM found that if they can get someone to stay after the first year of employment, they’re likely to stay for ten years
Addressing the need for behavioral and mental health support
Stress and mental health are major challenges for all employees — 77% of workers say they experienced work-related stress in the last month. MGM’s employees are feeling that stress, and the HR team found that costs for behavioral health programs were skyrocketing.
To address this issue, Patrice and her team were able to make the case for stronger mental health benefits by showing their leadership the data.
Then, they created an action plan to get the word out about the benefits they offer, which included:
- A town hall focused on self-care, where leaders talked about how they care for their mental wellbeing
- A fireside chat during Mental Health Awareness Month in May led by the chief human resources officer, where she and other leaders shared personal stories about their challenges
- A Mental Health Resource Guide, which described the continuum of mental health, along with information on benefits that map to each phase of the continuum
Driving engagement with benefits
MGM has lifetime coaches who help employees navigate their wellbeing needs. On a regular basis, the MGM team meets with these coaches and the Grokker team to discuss the workforce’s wellbeing challenges. These meetings ensure that everyone is working in lockstep to support the diverse needs of MGM employees.
Through these conversations, Grokker and MGM worked together to:
- Generate customized communications
- Shine the spotlight on specific Grokker programs and challenges that match MGM’s wellness calendar
- Empower MGM’s lifetime coaches with the tools they need to prescribe the best solutions for the employees they serve
The key to the success of this approach was that the MGM team leaned on one of their vendors to integrate with their approach to wellbeing. Even if you don’t have Grokker, all companies can benefit from asking their vendors to work in alignment with their internal processes.
Taking a strategic approach to wellbeing
Tackling the complex wellbeing challenges your employees face requires a strategic approach. By leveraging data, Patrice and her team were able to zero in on a key challenge — behavioral health — and then create an action plan to address it.
Having an engaged leadership team enabled them to break the stigma around mental health so employees could feel comfortable voicing their needs and seeking out help. By working in alignment with internal life coaches and benefits providers — Grokker, in this case — they created customized communication plans and programs to drive awareness and engagement.
With this strategic approach, 71% of their workforce is engaging with Grokker and accessing the resources needed to improve their wellbeing.