When it comes to creating a standout perks and benefits package, Human Interest takes a surprisingly intuitive approach: It treats employees like customers.
Like any customer-obsessed company, Human Interest continuously collects feedback and stays on top of trends in its industry to ensure it’s meeting client needs. Zach Dombroski, director of total rewards, said the company’s HR team takes the same approach to its benefits package to ensure its offerings evolve right alongside the needs of its employees.
“We try to stay closely connected with our employees and business leaders to solicit feedback on our benefits packages to learn what folks value and would like to see more of,” he told Built In SF.
Of course, that’s merely one approach to evolving a perks and benefits package. Over at fintech company Chime, data rules the day. Kristen Jordan, benefits and wellness manager, said employee survey data and utilization data from its health partners and benefits management platform help her team identify what benefits to double down on and pull back from.
“Flexibility is key, and we continually analyze metrics and feedback to enhance our benefits package,” said Jordan.
Both Human Interest and Chime are committed to crafting perks and benefits packages that meet the moment for their teams. Here’s how they do it.
Chime is a fintech company that offers mobile checking and savings accounts and credit cards.
How do you make sure that you evolve your perks and benefits package to meet what employees need in the moment?
In response to a desire for wellness-focused perks, we introduced Navigate Wellbeing, an online wellness tool. We continue to adapt benefits based on usage, and our legal benefit shifted from universal to opt-in as we expanded.
Based on Chimers’ evolving needs, we’ve focused on expanding crucial benefits like parental leave and mental health support. This includes enhancements to Modern Health, which now integrates with our health plans to cover therapy sessions. The team has also made additions to help Chimers get the most out of their benefits, such as Collective Health, which brings all healthcare benefits under one roof.
Our commitment is to ensure Chimers’ well-being, align with industry standards and anticipate shifts in the remote-hybrid work landscape. As we look ahead, we envision in-office benefits on the horizon like health fairs and screenings.
Based on Chimers’ evolving needs, we’ve focused on expanding crucial benefits like parental leave and mental health support.”
What benefits have you pulled back on over the last year or so? What have you doubled up on?
We’ve pulled back on services that weren’t being widely used, like our legal benefits, while still offering them to Chimers who opt-in. And we’ve doubled down on mental health and parental benefits, as well as wellness offerings since those are the things many Chimers have indicated they want and need to feel supported.
What role does employee feedback play in making sure you’re putting together a relevant perks and benefits package that meets employees’ needs?
Feedback is a huge marker of whether our benefits are meeting employees’ needs. To better understand how employees feel about our benefits, we launched a benefits survey. The results of the survey go hand-in-hand with the data we get from the apps we use to manage benefits and our health partners, all of which let us know if benefits are being used. We believe in a balance of employee feedback and hard quantitative data to let us know what needs to be added, scaled back or changed.
A huge part of employee feedback comes through in the day-to-day of our work, such as Slack messages from employees showing appreciation for something or asking detailed questions. These one-off messages help us understand what we’re doing well, how we can better meet needs and where we need to improve education about benefits, such as through our benefits newsletter.
Human Interest is a fintech company that enables small and medium-sized businesses to offer 401(k) plans to their employees.
How do you make sure that you evolve your perks and benefits package to meet what employees need in the moment?
We recognize that the benefits landscape is constantly shifting as the needs and expectations of employees evolve. To that end, We combine this data with information that we get from our benefits broker on how to stay competitive in the market and we continually monitor the usage of the benefits we offer. When we combine all of these data points, it gives us a good sense of areas to focus our efforts.
What benefits have you pulled back on over the last year or so? What have you doubled up on?
We are fortunate to be in a position where we are able to focus more on investing in enhancements to our benefits programs versus pulling back from existing programs. Through feedback we’ve collected over time, we learned that increased mental health benefits and fertility-related support would be of tremendous value to our employees. As a result, we have made investments in both of these areas over the past year, bringing in new vendors to offer a higher degree of support beyond what exists in our standard medical plans.
We learned that increased mental health benefits and fertility-related support would be of tremendous value to our employees. As a result, we have made investments in both of these areas over the past year.”
What role does employee feedback play in making sure you’re putting together a relevant perks and benefits package that meets employees’ needs?
Employee feedback is hugely important to how we think about benefits. Ultimately, we offer benefits to support our employees and enhance their overall sense of well-being, both inside and outside of work. With this lens, employees are our end customers in the benefits space, so staying on top of employee sentiment is very important to our decision-making process. That being said, employee feedback is one of several angles through which we assess the relevance of our perks and benefits programs, but it serves as our North Star and ensures we are orienting ourselves in the right direction.
