How multinational HR teams can gain from global benefits management

Do you know what you’re currently spending each year on benefits?

Managing HR in an organisation with thousands of employees across multiple countries is extremely complex.

You need to make sure you have the right data and insights to demonstrate your programme’s ROI. Getting this right leads to better governance, risk management, cost containment and employee engagement.

Global benefits management offers multinational organisations an effective way to manage insured employee benefits around the world. Global or regional arrangements offer visibility, control, cost savings and ensure consistency in governance, while delivering solutions that are based on local country needs.

Do you have the right benefits to attract and retain key talent?

The right global benefits management programme for your organisation is one that is built around you. Your industry, your structure, your locations, your people.

As employers expand their operations globally, they need to look at the scope and level of benefits they provide for their increasingly diverse and mobile workforces. This includes understanding the range of health and well-being risks present in each location and their impact on employee productivity and engagement.

Global employee benefits to help you compete locally

The cost pressures on multinational businesses are growing. For many benefits are a major outgoing, comprising around 20% of total payroll costs. This could rise significantly, driven by escalating medical trend rates.

On top of this, substantial resources are spent tracking, renewing, tendering, and benchmarking insured benefits around the world.

Many organisations pay the price for a fragmented, multi-national approach to benefits broking. In fact, 81% of multinational benefits leaders say ‘global consistency’ is their number one priority according to MMB's latest UK Benefits Tech Trends report.

Firms urgently need to find efficiencies by harmonising and managing benefits collectively. This means developing a strong global structure, with the ability to tailor benefits for simple and agile local execution and employee engagement.

A Global Benefits Management (GBM) approach simplifies this process, streamlining administration, boosting value for money, and making sure that programmes provide measurable return on investment.

  1. Accessing and using insightful data and analytics to make business decisions 
  2. Reducing and managing costs
  3. Streamlining and automating processes
  4. Improving the benefits offered to employees and increasing engagement
  5. Ensuring compliance and improving governance
Wherever you are on your journey to a global benefits management programme, we’ve got all the help you need to design and build something that’s right for you, your people, locations and industry. And right for your future.

Benefits You Global: Our integrated suite of tools gives you a clear view of your whole programme and its costs: every benefit plan; every vendor; every country. Plans, renewals and financials all at your fingertips. With the data and analytics to make true oversight and governance not only possible, but easy.

Our award-winning Darwin technology delivers the compelling benefits experience that will help you attract and keep the best people. Enabling you to promote and track your employees’ engagement with their benefits, whilst also reducing risk and increasing productivity through automation.

With a data-driven, evidence-based global view, you can demonstrate your programme’s ROI and the value of benefits to your organisation.

How to embark on a successful global benefits management journey

Manage risk

You can’t manage what you can’t see. We give you a clear view of your risks, and ways to manage them. To cover your benefits, to comply with local legislation, to navigate increasingly complex risk and exposure of plans, to reduce risk and increase employee productivity through automation. And to use benefits to manage the greatest risk of all: not attracting the best and brightest people to your business.

Control costs

Globally, medical inflation and claims are on the rise, with more than half of markets seeing medical trend rates above 10% in 2024 and 2025. If you don’t have visibility of your costs, you can’t stop them escalating. We help you map and analyse your costs: to find efficiencies, to optimise spend, to use data from your programme to negotiate hard. When you can see your spend, you can use your size – and leverage our networks and experience – to strike better deals. On average, we save multinationals 10-15% on global and regional benefits premiums*.

* Source: MMB Global Benefits Management Analytics - An average saving of 10-15% of premiums demonstrated over a three-year term following the introduction of a new global benefits management programme in a non-pandemic year.

Optimise your financing strategy

We give you visibility of your global benefits spend, help you set a budget and finance it, making the most of your size and economies of scale. From insurance to self-insurance or captive set-ups, we’ll help you finance your programme in the way that’s right for who you are – and where you are on your benefits journey.

Improve well-being

When your people are all over the world, it can be hard to get a view on their well-being. We help you build strategies and programmes that translate into healthier, more engaged employees, as well as lower premiums. We help you understand what you have in place; help you listen to employees and understand what it is they truly need; and help you set a strategy that delivers on those needs, everywhere.

How Mercer Marsh Benefits can help

We can help you design, build, finance, automate and manage your global or regional programme to attract and keep top talent.

We meet you where you are on your journey, and bring vertical sector expertise and benchmarking, local insights from 150+ countries, new ideas and new ways of working.

We work with you to build a programme that’s right for you now and for who you want to become. As well as building benefits programmes, we build relationships. Strategic and long-term. Partnering with you to strengthen connections between your global and local teams. 

  • Global advisory and compliance

    Create a governance framework that aligns with your HR model and improves the employee experience in local markets.

    Remain confident that benefits are compliant in each market.

  • Global financing

    A single benefits broker to optimise your financing strategy for global employee benefits programmes at the local, regional or international level, helping improve collaboration with your risk and finance teams.

  • Local servicing

    Local policy placement, claims management and employee support means you can improve the employee experience, address local issues and gain efficiencies.

  • Specialised technology

    From our market-leading benefit software for managing global benefits and compensation information. Including a user-friendly app-like experience for employees accessing their benefits. 

  • Digitalised benefits administration

    Experience the advantages of centrally managed benefits: easier to govern, administer and communicate to employees across your offices.

  • Cost management

    Get a clear view and control of your whole programme and its costs, every benefits plan, every vendor, every country.

Related insights

    Learn how we can help you manage your global and regional benefits centrally.

    Speak with one of our team today