How employers can develop a more personalized approach to benefits

Employers are at a unique crossroads in 2025. Evolving employee expectations, economic uncertainty, changing work environments and rising insurance costs have all transformed the benefits landscape. Companies can no longer rely on traditional, one-size-fits-all benefits packages; they must offer benefits as diverse as their workforces to address the needs of every employee.

To offer a benefits program that directly aligns with the needs of employees, companies must first build a foundation to support this employee-centered benefits model. This starts with understanding employees' benefit priorities — especially across generations — and optimizing internal processes to support an increased volume of offerings.

Here are five things employers should be doing to ready themselves to take a more personalized approach to their benefits programs:

1. Speak directly with employees to identify their benefit priorities
It's not enough for employers to think they know where employees' benefit priorities lie — they have to be sure. The only way to do this is for employers to open the door to candid conversations with employees and invite them to voice their opinions. This can be through 1:1 conversations, group sessions or even through written surveys — the important part is that employers have a clear view into employees' needs so they can better accommodate them with the benefits they offer.

And the stakes have never been higher: Benefits can make or break an employee's decision to stay with a company or accept a job altogether. In fact, according to Payroll Integrations' 2024 Employee Financial Wellness Report, 67% of employees say that retirement plans and 65% say health insurance are critical to signing an offer letter. 

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2. Pinpoint the benefits that matter most to each generation
The workforce currently consists of four generations, which means four different sets of priorities that employers must account for. In addition to understanding what benefits appeal to the masses, employers need to get into the specifics of what matters most to each generation. This will play a large role in a company's ability to personalize its benefit offerings.

For example, when considering financial benefits, boomers (ages 59+) are focused on building out robust 401(k) plans, pension support and retirement coaching, while millennials' (ages 27-42) priorities are addressing student loan assistance, bulking up their emergency savings and investment education. And while Gen X + Y (ages 43-58) workers are interested in employer-matched retirement plans and financial wellness tools, Gen Zers (ages 18-26) want financial literacy programs, budgeting tools and debt reduction assistance.

To address these differences, companies can implement multiple benefits to address the concerns of specific generations — like the growing number of organizations implementing student loan repayment programs. They can also add benefits to their roster that give employees the tools to address many individual priorities. From a financial benefit perspective, for instance, this could mean financial education benefits like budgeting apps and one-on-one coaching, in addition to early wage access and savings programs. A worker from any generation can take these tools to increase their financial wellness in their own way.

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3. Keep up with employees' evolving needs as they change
While retirement and insurance benefits have always been top of mind for employees, they're even more critical now with rising healthcare costs and an increased cost of living. But, there are also new benefits that are of growing importance to employees.

Holistic health coverage, for example, is no longer considered a superfluous perk but a top employee benefit. This includes everything from gym and fitness incentives to mental health services and programs. Employees are also increasingly looking to their employers for family-centric benefits like eldercare support, child care assistance and fertility benefits.

And these priorities will continue to change — which means that employers must keep their conversations with employees ongoing to ensure their benefits are aligned.

4. Automate time-consuming benefit processes
Once employers have the information they need to make decisions about the benefits to invest in, they'll have to integrate these new benefits into their systems.

For the many HR teams that manually onboard employees, manage payroll and benefits, make employer contributions and ensure adherence to regulations, more benefit offerings means more hours of administrative work. With HR managers already spending 12 hours — or more than one-fourth of their work week — on average on payroll and benefit-related administrative tasks, teams can't afford to spend any more of their time on the backend of benefits.

In order for HR teams to increase the amount of benefit options they have to offer, so employees can have more choice and personalization, they have to automate the administrative processes that bog them down. By utilizing technology to help navigate these tasks, HR teams will not only have more time to focus on their employees, they can ensure that all benefit information is accurate and secure.

Read more:  What benefit managers are prioritizing in 2025

5. Add new offerings to benefit programs, little by little
As companies lean more into this personalized approach to benefits, it's easy to want to implement every benefit, all at once. Taking it little by little will help minimize overload for both HR teams and employees. Employers should identify the top priority benefits for employees and implement those first — and then expand to the others. 

As part of this, it's up to companies to communicate to employees when benefits are available in real-time and how to maximize their value. It's hard for individuals to sign up for benefits and other programs when they don't fully understand them, or know they exist. Companies can also track benefit participation levels to know where they may need to educate employees more — or to help identify what benefits may not be worth the investment.