5 Employee Benefits Trends to Watch for in 2021
If you’re offering a benefits package at all, you’re doing something right. But, just as fashion trends change, so do trends in benefits. Employees’ needs change over time, influenced by a number of factors, like the state of the economy, cultural shifts, societal pressures and so on.
Of these factors, two rank above the rest in terms of how they’re predicted to affect on demand for employee benefits across Canada in 2021. As you can imagine, one of them is COVID-19 and all the effects that lockdowns and the pandemic in general have caused. The average employee’s life has changed in so many ways since the start of the pandemic, with a widespread increase in the need for mental health support and emergency financial relief among other forms of support seen across the country. However, the world of benefits is also changing due to the major demographic shift that’s in progress right now. By 2025, it’s estimated that 75% of the global workforce will be Millennials, or people born between 1980 and 2000. This change in the makeup of the workforce has inevitably brought with it a different set of priorities and needs than the generation of employees that came before them had, meaning the benefits solutions of the past don’t necessarily fit as well as they used to.
To help you navigate the year ahead, we wanted to run down the 6 top trends to watch out for in employee benefits in 2021.
1. Elder Care
Just as the working population is getting younger, there are an increasing number of senior citizens who have retired ut of the workforce that rely on some level of assistance from others to live. According to population data from 2019, 17% of the Canadian population is over the age of 65, and that number is growing. As the elderly population increases, more Canadian families will be in a position where they need to take in a senior relative as a member of their household for financial reasons. Acting as a caregiver for a retired relative can increase the amount of pressure for breadwinning family members to provide enough income to keep everyone afloat, and to meet the special needs of their older loved one adequately.
Given both the demographic shift we mentioned and the tough economic conditions created by the pandemic, it’s unfortunately inevitable that many Canadian households will find themselves in over their heads as they try to care for a senior relative. However, savvy employers should recognize this need and see it as an opportunity to make a real impact in their employees’ lives. In turn, offering benefits that acknowledge the need for elder care support is bound to boost employee retention rates. This could be done by an employer in a number of ways, including offering healthcare benefits that cover the elder family member or by creating a pool of funds for where employees can apply for grants for caregiver-related costs.
2. Flexibility
The pandemic forced many businesses to go remote – it was reported that 40% of Canadian employees were working from home when lockdowns were first enforced, compared to less than 10% of Canadians working remotely in 2018. However, many employees have found the scheduling flexibility and comfort that remote work offers to be a welcome change from having to go into an office everyday. Remote work also reduces an employee’s costs on things like commuting, weekday meals and clothing. Beyond that, until the pandemic is fully behind us, working from home also offers employees the chance to work safely within their own household bubble, greatly reducing the chance that they’ll contract the virus and bring it home to their loved ones.
However, even if you know your business is going to go back to the office when it’s safe, the increase in remote work across the country still affects your business. As an increasing number of Canadian businesses have decided to stay remote looking into the future, it means that people don’t really need to live where they work anymore. A business in Ottawa can look beyond their local community and hire a great candidate from Winnipeg if they operate remotely; if everything is done online, there isn’t a major difference if that new hire is from down the block or across the country from head office. What that means in the long-run is that we’ll see more options for employees, which translates into increased competition for employers to find top talent. If you want to really attract great candidates when you’re hiring, your business needs to stand out - why should someone work for your business instead of broadening their horizons and looking elsewhere? As such, even if you’re not offering flexibility, recognize that it’s growing prevalence is going to put pressure on you to offer an innovative, progressive benefits package that genuinely offers your team a great deal of value in their lives.
3. Mental Health
One of the major cultural shifts we’ve seen over the past decade is the destigmatization of mental health in our society and, and as an extension of that, in the workplace. Personal stress, whether that be about one’s relationship and/or familial concerns, financial problems, job security, health or otherwise, follows people into work everyday. Beyond that, the past year has been extremely hard on people from all walks of life. People are feeling isolated, frustrated with restrictions, anxious and scared as a result of the pandemic, and many employees have been struggling with issues like burnout and how to manage a work/life balance when you work from home.
Given these concerns, you can expect to see a rise in demand for mental health-focused employee benefits over the next year. Though mental health support could be included in a general healthcare benefits package, offering benefits that acknowledge mental health as distinctly different than one’s physical health are important as a show of support. It’s estimated that 1 in 3 Canadians will deal with some kind of mental health issue in their lifetime, and even with public perceptions about mental health improving daily, many still find it difficult to speak up about their issues. This is particularly true in situations where there are clear power dynamics at play, like their place of work. Your business could promote mental health (awareness) by giving your employees a few mental health days per year, paid or unpaid, that they’re entitled to take in the same manner as sick days. Ideally, they should be able to do so without justification as to why they’re taking it, as many would consider it to be an uncomfortable conversation to have with a superior. Alternatively, you could offer to cover the cost of professional services, like therapy (group or private) and access to mental health resources like counsellors.
4. Telehealth
This is a trend that’s obviously linked directly to the pandemic, but is something that we’re not likely to see disappear anytime soon. More and more people are seeking out medical advice over the phone in order to avoid close contact in areas where they’ll be at high-risk of contracting COVID-19. Beyond that, offering a person the chance to chat with a doctor over the phone or by video about their medical concerns allows them the chance to do so from the comfort and safety of home. It also saves people the hassle of taking time off work to go in for an appointment and eliminates the cost involved in doing so.
Telehealth benefits are an excellent solution for a number of potential employee problems, and are a cheaper alternative to offering full-scale health benefits. Of course, telemedicine can only go so far; a diagnosis over the phone is less likely to be accurate than one done in person, and it doesn’t actually help to cover the cost of treatment for an employee. Still, despite its disadvantages, offering your employees access to a telehealth service is a great option for a benefits package that is likely to be of real value to your team.
5. Financial Wellness
Consider this: an employee that mismanages money will do so at any income level. Even if that person gets a raise, they’ll be more likely to find a way to spend it on non-essentials than they will be to save it or invest it in something stable. On the other hand, if an employee that mismanages money is given access to resources like educational materials, professional financial advice, a community keeping them accountable and the boost of a monetary benefit, they’re going to be much more likely to allocate their income productively and make choices that keep them financially secure.
This was the topic of our January edition of Workplace Wellness, but absolutely still worth mentioning. Financial wellness refers to a holistic perspective on a person’s financial state, including their bank balance, their level of financial literacy, their amount of debt and their ability to pay it off, their confidence when it comes to money management and more. Financial wellness benefits have been quickly gaining traction over the past few years as a greater priority than simply “giving employees more money”, as it seeks to assess the entire picture of a person’s relationship with money. Particularly since the start of the pandemic, more Canadians than ever need an extra boost to help grow their depleted savings and steady their financial footing. Financial wellness programs help to create long-term solutions to employees’ financial issues, and help you avoid wasting money on bandaid solutions that don’t do anything to help change your employees’ behaviour.
If you’re a Canadian employer interested in adopting an innovative benefits package to retain your employees, reduce the effects of financial stress in the workplace and set yourself apart from your competitors, match-based saving benefits may be right for your business! QUBER is an industry leader in Canadian match-based savings and can offer employers a customized experience using the QUBER platform to facilitate match-based savings with their employees. If you’re interested in seeing a demo of how QUBER can help strengthen your relationship with your employees, send us an email at contactus@quber.ca or visit our Employers page and send us a message using the contact form found at the bottom of the page.
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