If your an employer or an advisor whose clients are looking for places to start, here are options to consider:

If an organization isn't already, consider implementing flexible work policies. A whopping 96% of employees surveyed in 2023 said flexible work hours were their top empathetic benefit.
Organize monthly and quarterly challenges that help participants achieve a specific goal, whether it's daily steps, weight loss, or improving a financial habit.
Offer monthly lunch-and-learn sessions with outside experts on a variety of mental, physical, and financial wellness topics.
Foster gratitude and recognition by providing employees with a formal channel to express appreciation for their colleagues — and engage leadership in the exercise, too.
Allow employees a day of PTO to volunteer for a cause that is meaningful to them.

Empathetic AI increases personalization

Amid an abundance of offerings, it's important to be mindful that employees often feel overwhelmed by the complexities of benefits and health care, which may extend to wellness programs. Instead of scaling back, however, more HR teams and benefits advisors are finding ways to elicit help from AI — specifically, personalized and empathetic AI that blends machine learning, linguistic expertise, and generative AI to engage with people in increasingly "human" ways. After analyzing the behaviors of 18 million employees and their dependents, we found that when AI is deployed to provide personalized decision support, the rate of enrollment in voluntary benefits doubles. Among the many advantages of robust, navigable benefits programs is the powerful ripple effect from one area to another. For example, in a 2023 study, nearly half of workers mentioned financial concerns as a cause of lower mental health. Improving an employee's sense of financial health can have a significant positive effect on their mental and emotional wellbeing. Employers and their advisors can play an important role in building this momentum, which creates a domino of benefits that filter into employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

Instant Insights /

Employee wellness beyond the benefits package

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