With the fall renewal season just around the corner, it's time for employers and their benefits advisors to start planning employee benefit offerings.  Nailing the right benefits package helps employees feel supported and healthy, leading to greater retention rates and making it that much easier to recruit new talent. But how do you know if your current set of benefits is actually meeting the needs of employees?

The answer can be summed up in three words: employee population data. Employee population data gives you a birds' eye view of employees' health and lifestyle needs, so you can build an offering to effectively support them. And, while there are a virtually unlimited number of coverage options out there, by utilizing employee data, you will have the information you need to narrow down the choices and find providers that align with your needs.

There are two sources of employee data you'll want to dig into in parallel: the employee census and the survey. Once you have access to this information, you'll begin to identify themes that can help to guide your benefit decisions. Brokers can help their clients analyze and interpret this information by bringing specialized insights to the table to make better sense of these numbers.

Employee census

This is demographic data such as employees' age, gender, number of dependents, and so on. Once you analyze this data, you can start to predict what types of services or care employees may want.