Benefits Buzz

The time is now to celebrate your employees. With so much change in how we work, where we work, and who we work for, developing an employee recognition program is vital to supporting and retaining employees. And when it comes from the top of the organization, even better! WEX Chair and CEO Melissa Smith is here to tell you about the impact reimagining employee recognition can have on your business or organization.

With employees leaving their jobs in record numbers, HR professionals are looking for ways to stay informed on their employees’ needs so they can better support them. One way they’re learning more is through people analytics. With this data, HR leaders can make informed decisions that lead to higher employer retention rates, reduced bias in the workplace, and improved employee wellbeing. Our own Melanie Tinto talks through her experience with people analytics, including the capabilities, learnings, and other considerations.

WEX’s Benefits Buzz podcast reached an important milestone, with over 25,000 views/listens of episodes all-time. Over the years, we’ve found new ways to reach you and brought on exciting guests, but our mission has remained the same. We wanted to share five big takeaways we’ve learned with our audience of HR professionals and benefits decision-makers.

Since the start of the pandemic, mental and behavioral health requests increased 100 percent. For the youngest employees, that increase was even higher. While the mental wellness need was always there, employers are increasingly taking notice. One specific area we’re seeing is  simply removing the stigma around mental health and illnesses and making sure we all know how to talk about it.

That’s why we’ve invited Marna Canterbury, HealthPartners Senior Director of Community Health & Engagement and Joel Spoonheim, HealthPartners Senior Director of Worksite Health & Population Well-being, who help lead and support Make it OK, which is a community campaign to reduce stigma by increasing understanding and creating caring conversations about mental health and illnesses.

Visit www.makeitok.org for resources that can help you.

Putting out fires. Not enough time for strategy. Even less time to focus on the personal and professional growth of yourself and your team (if you manage one). These are real issues. And the churn of Zoom calls in the last couple years has only compounded the issue for many. We want to talk through time management and prioritizing growth with a real expert in Jones Loflin, who is an author, keynote speaker, and coach. For more on Loflin, go to jonesloflin.com.

The data is clear: In many ways, women have been more disproportionately affected by the pandemic than men. From February 2020 to January 2022, male workers regained all jobs they had lost due to the public health crisis, according to one analysis. However, 1.1 million women left the labor force during that span, accounting for 63 percent of all jobs lost.

And 42% of women and 35% of men have felt burned out in the last few months (up from 32% and 28% respectively, last year). So what is going on? What challenges are unique to women in the workplace? And what can we do to better support them? Elayne Fluker from the “Support is Sexy” podcast is here to share her insight on how to better support working women. Check out Elayne's work at elaynefluker.com.

Fluker's book: “Get Over ‘I Got It’”,

Fluker's podcast: “Support is Sexy”

Record-breaking job turnover has become a monthly headline. Fortunately for health savings account (HSA) participants, their HSAs stay with them even when they switch jobs. But now what are the options? We break down these options with an HSA when changing jobs. Or check out our blog post for more information.

Open enrollment might be the biggest moment on the benefits calendar year. How soon are you letting employees know it’s coming? And how can you get their attention early so they research now and save later? We talk with our own Steve Carroll, who will share his suggestions on building a year-round benefits communication plan to prepare for open enrollment.

You can learn about your workplace culture through exit interviews, but your active employees might provide even more valuable insight. WEX recently started conducting “stay interviews” to learn why employees keep working here. What was the motivation behind it? And how do they work? Chelsie Camp from our HR team joins us to provide you with potentially another way to collect employee feedback.

As employers explore new ways to support employee wellness, lifestyle spending accounts (LSAs) are a trendy benefit and a versatile way to show employees you care. LSAs are completely customizable by employers. With so many options, where do you begin? Arika Palloch on our sales team is here to talk through her experience in designing an LSA that’s a perfect fit for each employer. Get five ideas on how to better support employees' wellness needs. Download your free guide today!