Benefits governance for employers: Navigating the evolving employer-funded health benefits landscape 

The UK’s health gap - the disparity in employment rates and opportunities between healthy workers and those with health conditions - is a growing challenge for businesses.

In the UK, healthcare has traditionally been viewed as the remit of the State. But with NHS systems under pressure and workforce health becoming an urgent issue, employers are being called on to step in — not just as providers of benefits, but as architects of better health outcomes.

Reward and benefits professionals must view this health gap not just as a societal issue but as a strategic business risk. The ageing workforce, coupled with rising health risks, such as musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions and mental health challenges, requires a proactive approach to skills mapping and succession planning.

Without intervention, these trends threaten to erode organisational resilience, disrupt talent pipelines, and inflate costs associated with recruitment and training. Employer-funded healthcare can help alleviate these pressures by providing employees with faster access to private treatments thereby reducing reliance on the overstretched public system. But how can organisations ensure these efforts are impactful and cost-effective?

The answer lies in effective benefits governance.

The constant drive for innovation has result in a range of products and providers arriving at the same conclusion. More is more. However, these evolutions and enhancements has resulted in duplication and direct competition.

To ensure that your benefits programme delivers the greatest value for money, organisations need to understand all products in detail to maximise the value within.

MMB help clients achieve this by breaking down the component parts of their benefit provision, identify areas of duplication, and identify where an alternative pathway may achieve the same result without incurring extra cost or impacting the premiums paid.

The best way to ensure that you are personalising your benefits offering is to understand your needs.

This is especially true when it comes to the preventative aspect of a healthcare programme. You need to understand why your employees are claiming, or are absent from work, as well as their potential risks and the propensity for future claims.

Advancements in the ability of AI to predict and project the future, which when coupled with employee demographic will help to create targeted programmes to address your current and future health risks.

For employees, who typically need to be making use of their benefits at a time of crisis or concern, being able to seamlessly navigate and arrive at the most appropriate solution can be complicated. This is especially true when you consider the evolutions and enhancements spoken about earlier. Add to this the fact that in a number of cases we direct employees to their line manager as the first line of defence, education, awareness and engagement are key.

Although some employees will be informed about their benefits programme, most won’t know about all available solutions and interventions – nor will they know the best or most appropriate pathway. By increasing education, awareness and engagement, better health outcomes can be achieved, reducing the health gap and in time controlling or reducing premiums.