Your clients may be losing their best candidates to competitors with better benefits and not even know it. That is the warning from Jeff Hutchins, chief people officer at Trucordia, who says that weak benefits plans are quietly undermining employer talent strategies across the US.
Trucordia, headquartered in Lindon, Utah, is both a major plan sponsor making benefits decisions for its workforce of approximately 5,000, and one of the country's leading group benefits brokerages advising employer clients on their plans.
In an interview with Insurance Business Benefits US, Hutchins says that dual role shapes everything about how Trucordia designs its own benefits program and he shares the practices to attract and retain benefits industry talent.
"We have great experts within our organization building plans for other companies, and so we lean on them," he said. "We get their opinions. They help us draft what our plans look like based upon the market. And it is an advantage because we are on both sides of the aisle."
That inside knowledge, he adds, means Trucordia holds its own benefits program to the same standard it sets for clients; a discipline he believes more employers should adopt.
One of the clearest lessons from operating on both sides of the benefits equation, Hutchins says, is that more options rarely means better outcomes for employees.
"There was a day probably in the industry where the more you could offer, the better everyone thought," he said. "But there comes a point where too many options is overwhelming. Less is more, in my opinion, with regards to sometimes the options that are given to employees, because the goal will always be to educate. And the more you have to educate them, the less sure they are of what decisions they should make for them and their families."
For Trucordia, that means selecting the benefits that genuinely matter and doing them well, rather than offering a sprawling menu that leaves employees paralyzed at open enrollment.
Hutchins’ view resonates with a previous IBB interview with Bianka Douglas, vice president and people business leader for the workplace benefits division at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey. She referenced her firm’s annual workplace benefits study which found that most employers believe their benefits packages are meeting employee needs, but barely half of employees agree.
If the selection of benefits is one side of the equation, Hutchins says that communication is equally, if not more, important; and that most employers get it badly wrong by treating benefits as an annual conversation.
"If it's open enrollment, you give them a benefits guide and they're going to forget," he said. "They're going to enroll and then move forward."
Trucordia's approach is more visible. The firm brings a mammogram bus to employee parking lots, for example, giving workers and their dependents access to preventive care as a way of reinforcing what the benefits package actually covers. "We're trying to make it convenient, but it's part of the education," Hutchins said. "Ongoing communication - let them know what's out there, what's available for them."
He is particularly focused on ensuring employees know where to turn when something unexpected happens such as a serious diagnosis, a high-cost drug, a complex surgery. "We rely on tools as well to assist, whether it's Rx benefit platforms or understanding everything from infusion options to the best way to navigate a surgery or a treatment that they may not have expected," he said. "We pride ourselves on having the expertise."
Hutchins is unequivocal on the role of group benefits in talent attraction and retention. Employers that underinvest in their benefits package will lose the talent race.
"I'm an advocate for benefits," he said. "Companies who don't have quality benefits, they're going to be behind in the talent race. And that's on them."
He describes a pattern he sees repeatedly during hiring: when candidates push back on a benefits package citing higher costs or missing coverage, employers end up compensating with higher salaries or sign-on bonuses to close the gap. "Ultimately, they're going to pick and choose and spend more either on a sign-on bonus or a higher salary to get a candidate if your benefits aren't where they should be," he said.
At more senior levels of the workforce, he says, benefits have become at least equal to salary in the hiring conversation, particularly for candidates who have a specific healthcare need or dependents to cover. He also points to the role of longevity in reshaping how employees think about benefits. As workers live longer and retire later, he says, a strong benefits program is increasingly a reason people stay.
"I look at our benefits and, you know, insurance as a whole typically has a fairly mature workforce," Hutchins said. "Many of these folks are working for us because of the benefits that we provide."
Research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) highlights the importance of benefits to talent attraction and retention. The 2026 edition of the Employee Benefits Survey (it’s 30th annual edition) found that 88% of employers rated health benefits as important followed by retirement and savings (82%) and leave (82%).
Looking to the group benefits and wider insurance industry, the maturity of the workforce is something Hutchins thinks can no longer be treated as a background issue. He describes group benefits as "one of the hidden secrets" in terms of career opportunity but warns that the generational model of the past cannot sustain the industry at its current scale.
"Insurance has typically been a generational type business - grandpa did it, dad did it, I do it," he said. "It can't remain that. It's too large."
Trucordia has responded by building partnerships with universities to introduce students to the profession while still in school and by investing in the infrastructure needed to develop young producers once they join. Hutchins notes that Trucordia's top producer is under 40. "Most of the folks on our leaderboard are young talent that's come in," he said. "They're still trying to build a book."
He is candid that not every experienced broker is suited to mentoring the next generation. "Not everyone is built to mentor and provide kind of a foundation for a young producer," he said. But he is clear that the investment is necessary and that firms that fail to make it will find themselves exposed as the workforce ages out.
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Asked directly about the biggest threat to the group benefits brokerage model, Hutchins does not reach for technology or regulatory change. He goes back to education.
"You have a financial advisor and they help you with your finances, and they educate you along the way," he said. "You need a benefits advisor. You should have someone you trust who you can go to and plan for benefits."
In his view, too many employers (and too many employees) treat benefits as a fixed, static element of compensation rather than something to be actively managed and maximized. He says the broker's role is to close that gap: to be the trusted expert who walks clients through their options, helps them navigate unexpected events, and earns the same level of confidence that a financial advisor commands.
"If you had a trusted advisor look at your benefit package, they would give you some suggestions that would help you better utilize and probably save in the long run," he said.
It is a vision of the benefits broker as something more than a placement intermediary and one that Hutchins, occupying both the buyer's and the seller's chair, is well placed to advocate for.
