Summary

A company rolls out a $200/month wellness stipend with the best of intentions. It lands in employees' paychecks alongside everything else. Nobody changes their behavior. Claims don't go down. The intent was real, but without structure, there's no return. 

In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Trice Stevenson-Wright, VP of People Operations and Total Rewards at Alma, for a sharp conversation about what happens when benefits design has the right intent but the wrong rigor. Trice has spent her career overhauling benefits programs at companies where the spend was high, the utilization was low, and nobody had connected the two. 

She walks through why employees gravitate toward the most expensive plan when a less expensive one would protect them just as well, how shifting from unlimited PTO to flexible PTO with actual parameters got people to take more time off, and why AI is quietly transforming the white-glove moments in benefits administration—like parental leave—that used to require a dedicated person.

Trice also shares her grandmother's matching system (whatever you save, I'll match it), the daycare job that almost didn't pay her, and a 30-day experiment that any listener can try tomorrow: ask your employees if they understand how they're paid, then stop talking and listen. If you design benefits, manage total rewards, or are trying to make your company's spend actually mean something to the people it's meant for, Trice's perspective on structuring intent will stay with you.

Timestamps

• 01:48 Trice's earliest money memory: frugality born from awareness, not scarcity
• 03:35 The daycare job that almost didn't pay her and the grandmother who matched her savings
• 05:31 Thinking about pay as an ecosystem, not a line item
• 06:47 Where benefits break down: over-indexing on offerings without connecting to ROI
• 09:15 Why employees pick the most expensive plan and what care navigation can fix
• 12:46 Unlimited PTO versus flexible PTO: the shift that actually got people to rest
• 15:45 AI in benefits administration: automating the white-glove parental leave experience
• 24:57 The 30-day experiment: ask employees if they understand how they're paid

Takeaways

• Structure your intent—a wellness stipend deposited alongside a paycheck with no guardrails won't change behavior or claims
• Employees default to the most expensive medical plan because it feels safest; care navigation closes the gap between perception and what they actually need
• Shifting from unlimited PTO to flexible PTO with real parameters got employees to actually take more time off, not less
• AI can now automate the high-touch benefits moments—parental leave prep, return-to-work resources—that used to require a dedicated person
• Pay transparency works only if employees are equipped to receive it; education and enablement have to come before the reveal
• Try this tomorrow: ask your employees if they understand how they're paid and how they grow their earnings, then just listen

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricestevensonwright/

Company website: https://www.helloalma.com

Sponsor

Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence.

With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track.VP total rewards, benefits ROI, wellness stipend design, unlimited PTO problems, flexible PTO, care navigation benefits, benefits over-saturation, pay transparency education, AI in benefits administration, employee financial wellness, total rewards strategy, benefits communication, pay equity analytics, compensation philosophy, employee value proposition, lifestyle spending accounts, parental leave automation, benefits personalization, Beyond the Paycheck podcast

See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/

• (01:48) - Trice's earliest money memory: frugality born from awareness, not scarcity