Mercer's second Pan-European Health & Benefits survey report, is now available for purchase.

About the survey

The online survey was opened to employers in 24 countries in Europe from May 2008 to June 2008. Completed surveys were submitted by 842 employers.

To gain the best possible “real world” insights from the survey, interpretation and explanation of the country-level results was provided by Mercer (and sister company Marsh) health and benefits professionals in each of the 24 European countries represented, as well as in the US.

Employers in all countries were asked a common set of core questions, and additional questions specific to the health benefits market in their country. This report discusses the core questions only. Results for the country-specific questions will be released separately.

Key findings

A summary of some of the key findings is provided below:

• Attracting and retaining key talent is the most important objective for providing health and benefits services.  68% agree that they would struggle to retain top performing employees if they did not provide all the health benefits currently offered
   
• Cost increases from welfare reform are a concern, but many employers are reluctant to reduce benefit provision in this area, or shift cost to employees due to the overriding need to attract and retain talented employees.
   
• Recruitment and retention needs appear to be the driving force for shaping the design of benefits provided.  Short and long-term sickness pay, medical plans and health screening feature strongly.
   
• Multinational companies are well represented in the survey, but only half actively attempt to coordinate their activities, and only around a quarter have common strategies across the region.
   
• Nearly 1 in 5 respondents stated that absence rates had increased in the last 3 years, with three quarters of lost time being due to short-term absence
   
• Managers do not have easy access to good employee absence data, with 6 in 10 unable to easily access good data on the cause of absence
   
• Where public spending on health is low, a higher percentage of payroll is being spent on health benefits.  Also, fewer employers in these countries are actively managing absence, consequently leading to higher and increasing absence rates.

How you can benefit from the survey

This survey provides clients with a unique insight into the similarities and differences in how employers are feeling about the challenge of balancing the need to offer attractive health benefits with managing the consequent future cost exposure. It allows employers to benchmark their existing health and benefits programs to re-evaluate their priorities and address both recruiting and retaining key talent and maintaining a healthy workforce.

Country level data is also available so that clients can drill into specific and more detailed peer group comparisons.

Contact us

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Mercer representative below.