“Can employees see themselves reflected in the benefits being offered?” Joan Ganas, Vice President, Group Benefits at Co-operators, returns to that idea several times. Healthcare costs continue to rise, but she argues affordability and value are no longer separate conversations. Even a generous benefits package can fall short if employees don’t see how it fits their lives.
In Greek mythology, Procrustes welcomed weary travellers with the promise of a bed for the night. Every guest, however, had to fit the same bed, those who were too short were stretched and those who were too tall were cut down. The bed never changed, it was the people that had to.
Employee benefits have, in some ways, followed similar logic. Plans were built around a hypothetical average employee, with the expectation that everyone else would fit the design. The Canadian workforce today has exposed the flaw in that sort of thinking.
Start with who is actually on the payroll. Canadian workplaces now span multiple generations at once, alongside a wider range of family structures, financial circumstances and cultural backgrounds than benefits plans were ever designed to hold. Employees are at different life stages, with different health needs, caregiving responsibilities and financial priorities.
A 25-year-old starting their career, a parent with young children, someone caring for ageing parents, an employee managing a chronic condition and someone approaching retirement may all receive the same benefits package, but they’re unlikely to value the same things.
“That single standard plan can provide equal coverage,” Ganas says, “but doesn’t always feel equitable when people’s needs are so very different.”
Employers are making the investment, Ganas says. But most programs are “designed around that average employee, and that average employee doesn’t really exist.” Two things have to happen before that investment registers. Employees need to understand what is available to them, and they need to see the realities of their own lives reflected in it.
Ganas sees flexibility as the answer, although perhaps not in the way the word is often used. “It’s easy to put extra benefits on the shelf,” she says. The objective isn’t to create an endless catalogue of options. It’s to build thoughtful choice into a well-designed plan while keeping it manageable for both employees and employers.
That could mean modular plans that allow employees to choose between different levels of coverage. It might involve a core benefits package that employees can build on depending on their life stage, or spending accounts that let them direct benefit dollars toward healthcare or personal priorities as their circumstances change.
Those choices are being made against a moving backdrop. Subjects that were rarely part of a benefits conversation now sit inside plan design, including mental health, women’s health, fertility and menopause.
New treatments such as GLP-1s raise cost questions most plans were not built to answer. And all of it still has to stay affordable. That combination cannot be handled by simply adding more, which is why Ganas frames the task as adaptation, “Employers need benefit strategies that can evolve as their workforce is evolving.”
Adding options is the easiest move under pressure, and as she puts it, “it’s easy to put extra benefits on the shelf.” But the constraint is the person doing the choosing: “It’s not about creating more options. It’s about keeping it manageable for the employees making those choices.” Extra shelf stock raises cost but rarely raises relevance.
Co-operators’ approach is to treat employee relevance and employer sustainability as part of the same design problem. Its group benefits strategy, Ganas says, is built around “helping employers balance the protection, flexibility and simplicity” employees need with a plan structure organizations can continue to support.”
Spending accounts are one relatively simple way to introduce that flexibility, because employees can direct the dollars toward the areas that matter most to them. The key, Ganas says, is ensuring that added choice does not become another source of complexity. “It’s important to keep it manageable for the employees making those choices.”
“The business case is more about better alignment between the investment and then the impact that you’re seeing,” Ganas says. Employers already spend heavily, and flexibility improves the odds the spending is used and valued.
When employees pick options that match their stage of life, “their perceived value all of a sudden increases,” and engagement and retention improve without the contribution changing. The evidence has to be gathered in house: which options get used, and how choices shift from year to year.
“Always start by listening,” Ganas says, and “it doesn’t mean you need a complete redesign.” Better communication can reduce gaps in understanding, while minimizing additional costs.” A spending account can be added without restructuring anything. Flexible design can start small.
Ganas expects three things to become standard in benefits plans: choice, ease and guidance. Employees will increasingly expect benefits to reflect their own circumstances, enrolment to feel as intuitive as the digital services they use elsewhere, and clearer support as healthcare and benefits become “more complex, not less.”
Employees arrive with different health journeys, caregiving responsibilities, family-building goals, financial situations and cultural backgrounds. A benefits plan cannot eliminate those differences, but it can acknowledge them in practical ways through the choices it offers.
This article was produced in partnership with Co-operators
