How to Turn Employee Feedback into a Better Benefits Strategy for Your Business

Whenever thinking about a new benefits strategy, you should avoid trying to implement everything at once. You first should weigh new ideas against your budget and your company’s goals. A good time to check these choices is right after you finish your annual compliance filings and have fresh metrics to look at.

It takes having a great, dependable team to run a successful business today. So it can be frustrating to notice increased attrition simply because your benefits packages feel outdated or irrelevant to employees.

Although conducting competitive analysis and market data might tell you what many companies select for their employees in terms of benefits and perks, this analysis doesn’t always show you what your people will actually value long term. And if your benefit offerings don’t address your teams’ needs, engagement and interest can decrease over time.

The good news is, you don’t have to play the guessing game when building a benefits strategy that hits the mark. By shifting to a feedback-driven model for structuring your benefits offerings, you’ll be able to create a package that’s both affordable and helps you to retain your top talent long-term.

Why Standard Benefits Packages Are Becoming Less Impactful

Trying to keep each of your employees happy will “all” the benefits you offer, especially as the business grows, can often feel like a losing battle. The reality is, it doesn’t matter whether your company is small or has multiple office locations – an overly rigid benefits approach often leaves someone out or feels like not a lot of thought went into the creation process.

Offering more personalized options by finding out what your workforce actually values right now is a much better approach. When you prioritize hearing from your team directly as you build a new benefits structure, you get to hear firsthand from the people who will actually be using those perks each day. This ensures your program continues to deliver real value over time while addressing important staff concerns.

Another problem with traditional benefit packages is that they often lead to poor ROI. When a company invests in benefits that aren’t needed or are rarely used, it results in significant wasted resources. However, by checking in with your team and formatting your plans so that each employee can maximize their benefit use, you can help get the most from your budget and ensure every dollar supports the specific needs of your staff.

But asking your team for their opinions can do more than just help you build an optimal benefits structure. It also shows your team that their voices actually matter. It proves that you are dedicated to making choices based on their well-being rather than just following what other businesses have set.

When workers feel like you have their back, they are much more likely to stay for the long term. That sense of stability helps to improve their daily work routine and is one of the best ways to reduce turnover.

Effective Methods for Gathering Employee Insights

Anonymized Surveys: Sending out anonymous surveys for your employees to take is an easy, cost-effective way to better understand the effectiveness of your current benefit packages. These types of surveys help you better understand the usage trends you’re referring to when it comes to benefits consumption and help put the “why” behind major dips or increases. Sending pulse surveys a few times a year can give you a good sense of how all your teams are feeling and give you insights into potential changes that might be needed.

Segmented Focus Groups: While surveys give you the big picture, focus groups can offer even more detail. These more direct interactions let your staff explain to executive teams why certain perks are more important than others. You can set these up for different groups, like new hires, parents, or remote workers. This helps you find specific needs that a general survey might miss.

One-on-One Check-ins: There are other opportunities for you to collect helpful information related to your benefits offerings when carrying out exit interviews or one-on-one management conversations with employees. These are great ways to look for patterns in usage or feedback that point to areas that you might want to address sooner rather than later. These conversations are also often more natural and detailed than a survey might be able to reveal.

How to Turn Your Feedback Data into Improved Benefits Offerings

With this information ready, you can start applying it directly to your benefits roadmap.

Gather and Analyze Input

Start by pulling all your notes together from surveys, workshops, and meetings. Your team should group these insights into categories like health, flexibility, or mental health. This makes it easier to see the notable trends or where the most frustration lies with your teams.

It’s important to look at how many people want a specific benefit and how badly they need it. For example, childcare might only be a priority for a few people. However, you still need to consider the impact on the business if those individuals choose to leave the company for another that can offer it to them.

Prioritize Strategies That Drive Significant Change

For instance, adding virtual health visits might be cheaper and more helpful than building a new gym. By focusing on these high-leverage items, you get the best results for your team and your business.

Begin with a Focused Pilot Initiative

Instead of trying to push out a completely new selection of benefits all at once, try a small test run for a new offering. This lets you see how people use it before you spend a huge part of your budget on a long-term contract.

You might want to consider offering a three-month trial for a wellness app or a financial workshop. Starting small lowers your risk and shows the team you are still listening to their needs. It also makes the full rollout much smoother later on because you’ve already addressed many of the questions that might come with a new set of offerings.

Keep Your Employees More Involved in Benefits Decisions

When building out your benefits offerings, you should partner with your team and treat their input as the most important part of the process. This helps you build a strategy that is fair, stays on budget, and fits your specific business culture.

When you use internal feedback to shape your offerings, you don’t just make sure you’re getting the best returns on your investment; you’re also building a team that is actually committed to the business for years to come. For further insights into the evolving workplace paradigm, visit

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Frank Mengert

Founder and CEO at ebm

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, a leading provider of employee benefits solutions. Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.