Clinically reviewed by Chris Mosunic, PhD, RD, MBA, Chief Clinical Officer, Calm
It’s the irony of innovation in employee benefits: as new products and services come to market to address every employee need, organizations’ benefits portfolios become too fragmented and complex for employees to use. And with low utilization, employer benefits strategies fail to deliver anticipated outcomes.
In response to point-solution fatigue, more vendors have developed more solutions— digital front doors, navigators, and aggregators, for example—to try to make things easier for organizations and employees. Yet employees continue to struggle to find and use their benefits.
Clearly, a new approach is needed—one that drives employees to engage and makes it easy for them to find and use the support they need when they need it.
The benefits landscape continues to grow bigger and more complex
Point-solution fatigue isn’t new. For roughly a decade, organizations have been drawn to new specialty solutions that promise to enhance the employee experience, improve productivity, and help retain talent. Solutions for weight management, menopause, and financial wellness are just a few of the more recent additions to employers’ benefits portfolios.
And they’re just a tiny fraction of available health benefits. Today, there are nearly 300 categories of benefits that organizations can explore when designing their employee benefits packages. According to one analysis, large employers manage up to 12 health‑focused solutions alone, which creates a heavy administrative burden for procurement and IT departments and for employees, complexity and confusion.
Benefits confusion has greater negative consequences for employees
That complexity comes with a real cost, according to the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI). The IBI’s survey of 800+ workers found that more than 70% of employees report at least one negative consequence from difficult benefits navigation:
- 35%+ of employees said they experienced an increase in stress and anxiety (in direct opposition to employers’ goals regarding workforce wellbeing)
- 28% reported delayed medical care
- 20% didn’t use available benefits at all
More than a quarter of employees surveyed said that when they’re confused, they turn to their health plan (35%), friends and family (32%), or their doctor (30%) or don’t get any help at all (26%).
Digital front doors and navigators fall short of solving point-solution fatigue and low benefits utilization
In response to benefits fragmentation, low utilization, and the administrative headaches, a whole new sector emerged to make things better. Navigation platforms, digital front doors, and aggregators promised to simplify the benefits landscape and make acquiring, managing, and using benefits easier for procurement teams, IT departments, and employees.
Although these tools are a step in the right direction, they still largely fail to drive employee engagement and benefits use. Even though employees know there’s a single access point, they’re still expected to self-start, know what type of support they need, and then navigate to the right app or service on their own. Yet, employees typically take action only once they’re sick or their needs escalate, and when they struggle to find the support they need, they may experience frustration, stress, and/or anxiety, rather than relief.
What’s more, the IBI’s survey data suggests that the foundational assumption doesn’t hold: Only 40% of workers actually access their benefits through a single platform. It could be that employers haven’t made one available, that employees aren’t aware of the platform, or that they feel the additional layer isn’t helping them in any meaningful way.
Health plans absorb tools, but point-solution fatigue persists
Ultimately, many single-access-point solutions were acquired or absorbed by large health-tech platforms or health plans wanting to simplify the member experience and fold navigation into their own ecosystems.
But the problems persist. According to a survey by MedCity News, nearly 40% of consultants believe that navigation through a self-insured employer’s existing health plan doesn’t meet their needs. And about 85% of consultants said that employers still need their employee healthcare benefits to be easier to utilize, which starts with ending digital health point solution fatigue.
The path forward: design intelligent benefits ecosystems that map to employee journeys
So where do employers go from here? Simply replacing underperforming vendor solutions with new ones isn’t likely to make a significant impact if employee confusion is the cause.
Instead, consultants and employers can create a new type of benefits ecosystem, one that is designed around employee experiences and creates a more intuitive and engaging support system.
Employees shouldn’t have to navigate an entire benefits portfolio and determine which solution best meets their needs. Instead, consultants can help employer clients simplify the journey by creating clear pathways, helping reduce employee confusion and get them to the resources most aligned with their specific needs.
For example, rather than expect employees to think in terms of vendors or benefit categories, allow them to approach benefits from the personal experiences they’re navigating, whether they’re caring for an aging parent, planning or expanding a family, receiving a new diagnosis, managing a chronic condition, or dealing with another significant life or health event.
In this way, employees more naturally discover relevant support instead of searching through disconnected resources.
In short, intelligent benefits ecosystems comprise solutions that
- Meet people before there’s a critical need;
- Personalize the experience, intelligently guiding users to the products and services most appropriate for their personal journey and needs; and
- Keep employees engaged.
In other words, they can create an intelligent benefits ecosystem made up of solutions that are proactive, personalized to employee journeys, and continuous, promoting high levels of engagement and benefits utilization.
Calm Health: the foundation for intelligent benefits ecosystems
Calm Health, a digital mental wellness solution, was designed to be proactive, personalized to employee journeys, and continuous.
- Proactive engagement of employees through a mental health screening offers a clear entry point to support
Rather than relying on employees to self-start when they feel overwhelmed and to know where to go, Calm Health takes a proactive approach to engagement.
Employees receive an invitation to take a brief online mental health screening that uses questions from the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9), a screening for depression symptoms, and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) questionnaire, a screening for anxiety symptoms. Upon completion of Calm Health’s screening, users receive recommendations based on their results.
(Calm Health’s screening is not a substitute for care by a physician or other healthcare provider. Nor is it intended to diagnose or treat depression, anxiety, or any other disease or condition.) - Personalized recommendations and guidance that map to employees’ unique life and health journeys
With Calm Health, employees have the opportunity to record personal goals and interests, such as getting support for caregiver stress, aging, or the emotional and mental health needs associated with cancer or other chronic conditions.
Calm Health combines this self-reported information with their mental health screening results and applies responsive artificial intelligence (AI) to provide tailored recommendations and guided support to
- Specific Calm Health evidence-based programs for life experiences, health conditions, and personal goals and interests (developed by psychologists with subject matter expertise, Calm Health’s clinical library includes mental wellness programs to support people struggling with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, caregiving responsibilities and stress, grief, loneliness, vicarious trauma, and many other common challenges);
- Relevant employer-sponsored benefits, such as the organization’s employee assistance program, coaching, therapy, or condition-specific programs; and
- Mindfulness content, including meditations, soundscapes, Sleep Stories, and breathing exercises.
This type of AI-informed guidance will play an important role in advancing navigation to the next level and providing more timely and precise recommendations to users, according to the Business Group on Health.
- Continuous employee engagement and benefits utilization
Calm Health reminds users when it’s appropriate to retake the screening and update their personal goals and interests. As their needs, goals, and interests evolve, so do the personalized recommendations, promoting continued engagement. HR administrators also receive engagement strategies each month that help connect employees to resources for specific conditions, life conditions, and cultural moments such as Pride Month and National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Moving from point-solution fatigue to benefits utilization
Innovation will continue in employee benefits, but employers and health plans will need to move beyond point solutions and tools that don’t tackle the root causes of complexity and confusion. They can create intelligent benefits ecosystems that deliver a proactive, personalized, and continuous experience—one that maps directly to employees’ specific journeys and needs, rather than expecting them to navigate a sea of disconnected benefits. Calm Health works to understand each user’s unique needs and goals, and guides them to the relevant benefits and resources, promoting ongoing engagement and benefits utilization.
