2024 benefits trends we can’t stop talking about

2024 is set to be an exciting year in the health benefits world. Here’s a first look at some of the topics we all have to look forward to.

In a recent webinar, we involved experts from our Client Advisory Board (CAB) and partnered with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to bring our audience four of the most-talked-about trends that we’re anticipating for 2024. Plus, we covered strategies on how to implement the trends into your business.

Follow along to learn more below, and don’t forget to access the recording to get all of the strategies straight from our amazing panelists.

Trend 1: Supporting employee wellbeing

Employee wellbeing has always been a huge focus, but it’s something that’s going to be top of mind for many people leaders in 2024. Not only will it help keep your workforce happier and healthier, but focusing on wellbeing will also help to boost employee retention and overall work output.

With the rise of the hybrid work model and increased prioritization of learning what happiness looks like among employees, this year is a great time to dive into ways you can support your employees in even more meaningful ways. We asked our panelists how they’ll be supporting their workforces’ wellbeing, and they provided the below strategies as thought-starters.

Top strategies

• Identify the unique needs of your employees by asking them directly

• Provide non-health related incentives, like tuition reimbursement

• Support those in your workforce who are also caregivers for children or a parent in eldercare

Trend 2: Controlling rising healthcare costs

It seems like everything is getting more expensive, and healthcare is no exception. As we start a new year, more and more companies are looking at ways to ensure they can alleviate some of this mounting financial strain on their workforces through their benefits offerings. There are several strategies you could use, but in addition to a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) coupled with a Health Savings Account (HSA), our panelists recommended the following to help get the wheels in motion:

Top strategies

• Provide an interest-free healthcare line of credit to your workforce

• Control pharmacy costs

• Conduct a dependent eligibility audit

When polled, the webinar audience ranked their top choices for healthcare strategies to consider in 2024. What was the most popular area? By a wide margin, the audience selected improving their HDHP + HSA plan design. Conducting an eligibility audit was the next most popular topic.

Trend 3: Improving benefits literacy and adoption across a diverse workforce

Making sure your workforce has access to the knowledge they need to truly understand your benefits offerings will lead to them making more confident decisions for themselves and their families. 2024 will likely see a huge trend toward increasing benefits literacy. One of the ways your business can get ahead of that topic is to provide comprehensive and easy-to-follow resources that lay out their options.

To that point, it’s also essential to provide resources for all the demographics in your workforce. Not everyone needs the same things from your benefits offerings, but making sure they know how to use them to their specific advantage will make all the difference. Here are our panelists’ top strategies for improving benefits literacy.

Top strategies

• Evolve communication to fit into the needs of your decentralized workforce

• Incentivize education and engagement

• Offer resources to navigate life stages

Trend 4: Using AI to level up your benefits

AI is a powerful tool that has seemingly endless usability. And as it’s getting more advanced, that usability will bleed into the health benefits space, which has the promise to make people teams’ lives easier. For example, in a recent poll on LinkedIn, our audience ranked answering plan questions (52%) and recommending plan options (32%) as areas of benefits administration where an AI application could streamline processes.

In this last section of our webinar, we asked our panelists to provide some use cases where they could see AI making a huge impact. Here are their suggestions.

Top use cases:

• Helping people teams get pricing estimates

• Extending the output of lean HR workforces

• Simplifying the user experience of benefits platforms

Step into 2024 with HealthEquity

One thing that our trends point to is that it’s essential for your business to have plans in place to support your employees so they can thrive. To help ensure you’re fully supporting your employees, you can give them access to benefits that will give them the financial and health benefits freedom to make smart decisions for their futures.

HealthEquity is the leading provider of HSAs and other comprehensive benefits designed with businesses and their employees in mind. Learn more about our services by requesting a demo today.