Family planning and fertility – value add or table stakes?

The combination of a global pandemic and the Great Resignation have blown employee benefits wide open, leaving employers and benefit advisors to pick up the pieces.

A recent Mineral benchmarking report found that the focus of employers towards recruitment and retention grew significantly from 24% in 2020 to 64% in 2021.  Another pivotal area that followed suit was employee retention, doubling from 20% to 40%. What we can learn from this? While 2020 was a year of survival, 2021 and beyond is about people.

Attracting quality talent has become significantly more difficult recently; too many open positions and not enough qualified candidates to fill. This has caused employers to feel the need to compete more and more by enhancing their comprehensive benefit packages and focusing on non-insurance-based items, or lifestyle benefits.  Rather than only focusing on insurance-based benefits, employers are now looking more at employee benefit items that are targeted at each individual’s need outside of work and their personal/family lives.

One key area of this emerging benefit trend is family planning and fertility.  The two terms have been used interchangeably as of late; however, both are equally important when considering whether to include certain components as part of a benefit plan, such as:

• In-vitro fertilization
• Embryo storage
• Egg freezing and storage
• Genetic testing
• Surrogacy

When you couple how the difficulty of filling open positions is causing employer competition with the fact employees are keen to seek employment from an employer who provides more lifestyle benefits, benefits that were previously considered cutting edge or industry leading are now becoming more of an expectation.

So, we get it. Employers need to offer family planning and fertility benefits; but how do they go about doing it?  There are several things to consider, but the good news is, there is no one size fits all solution and there are a plethora of solution providers and ideas to implement based on budget and capabilities.

Here are some things to consider!

What to cover? What to offer?

First, employers should consider which type of benefits to offer.  The leading aspects of fertility benefits have been egg freezing and IVF.  This allows individuals and couples to preserve their eggs from a time when they are potentially healthier and also more efficiently start a family more successfully.  This benefit has proven to be attractive to those in both the millennial and Gen Z generations, as well as women who value their careers and plan to return to work.

There is also surrogacy to consider.  While costly, there are strategies and solution providers to put this benefit in place, especially for those who cannot conceive or for same sex couples.

There has been a significant boom in the fertility world and there are now many providers offering vast solutions, but many take it a step further than just being a financial conduit.

Most employers offer an EAP; however, when it comes to family planning and fertility, many individuals and couples have no idea where to start.  Thus, this is an area of focus for various family planning vendors as they wrap their entire solution with a holistic and comprehensive coach or advocate.  Imagine having a single point of contact for your entire family planning journey.

What about my budget?

The best part about this is the fact employers can set their own budget.  Start small and then, depending on utilization, you can gradually increase.  Employers can set their cap.  While the costs of various aspects of family planning can be cost prohibitive for employees and their pocketbooks, employers are considering a lifetime benefit limit up to $25,000 ranging in various coverage items.

But how can employers find these specialists and providers?  By partnering and leveraging these solution providers who make it their organizational mission to work with highly qualified and successful outcome-based facilities and specialists.

Not every employee will utilize the benefit every year, so while it may seem like an expensive benefit to budget for, it has not contributed to a significant increase in health care costs.

So back to the main question, are family planning and fertility benefits a value add or table stakes?

Well, it’s both.  It just depends on your industry and who it is you’re trying to attract from a candidate and personnel perspective.  While the number of organizations nationwide offering family planning benefits are increasing, it is most often offered by employers with over 500 employees.  It may be of no surprise that the technology industry were the leaders in offering these comprehensive lifestyle benefits, but we’ve seen them expand to retail, health care, manufacturing, consulting and financial organizations.

While employers are putting their best foot forward to attract and retain top talent, it’s important to consider the other side of the table.  More and more individuals are asking about these sorts of benefits as part of their overall total compensation strategy.  While it may not be a deal breaker, it weighs heavy enough with current generations and can affect whether or not a candidate accepts an offer or not.  It’s certainly a ‘pro’ when candidates start etching out their pros and cons list of employment opportunities.

All in all, if we’re not already there, we’re very close to considering fertility benefits and family planning solutions to be table stakes.  With more employees requesting, more employers adding and more solution providers existing, this is an area that will continue to grow and become more relevant.

Ed Ligonde is Vice President of Employee Benefits & Technology at Nielsen Benefits Group and the 2021 BenefitsPRO Broker of the Year.