Jeff Williams, the U.S. president and CEO of Aptia Group, a leading health, benefits, and pension administrator, sat down with All Things Work host Anne Sparaco at SHRM24 to chat about the benefits he sees causing a buzz across various demographics—and how employers can offer robust benefit packages without breaking the bank.
Jeff Williams, the U.S. president and CEO of Aptia Group, a leading health, benefits, and pension administrator, sat down with All Things Work host Anne Sparaco at SHRM24 to chat about the benefits he sees causing a buzz across various demographics—and how employers can offer robust benefit packages without breaking the bank.
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Anne Sparaco:
Welcome to All Things Work, a podcast from SHRM. I'm your host, Anne Sparaco. This week we're discussing the latest trends with benefits and exactly how to gauge the best benefits for your employees and your company. And here to talk about that topic to share his insights is Jeff Williams, who just became recently the new president and CEO of Aptia Group USA. Jeff, welcome.
Jeff Williams:
Thanks, Anne. Great to be here.
Anne Sparaco:
Wonderful. And for our listeners who may not really know what exactly Aptia Group USA is, can you go over what the company provides, what are your real goal and purpose is?
Jeff Williams:
Absolutely. We are the leading benefit administration provider in the United States, in our opinion, but we're definitely one of the leading firms in the industry. We deliver benefits to employers in the mid to large market space, and we try and help their participants have healthier lives and more secure retirements.
Anne Sparaco:
So you are the best person to talk for this topic today.
Jeff Williams:
I'd like to think I know a little bit, but we'll see over the next little while.
Anne Sparaco:
Absolutely. So as you understand, SHRM just released the 2024 employee benefits survey. People really look out for this survey every single year, and a lot of what we saw were healthcare benefits were noted, extremely important or very important, as the number one option for employees. And that was followed by, of course, flexible leave, retirement savings and planning benefits. And then that was followed by family care and professional and career development. And now from your perspective, can you talk about some of the benefits maybe you've seen employers offer to meet the middle of that demand of flexibility, but also trying to retain that talent?
Jeff Williams:
I sure can. I think Anne us, what we see is, you get the big three and then you build around that. So what are the big three? The big three are health, so making sure you provide health insurance benefits to your people, and that's a near ubiquitous benefit out there today for those providing benefits. The second is retirement, so giving people some ability to have a 401(k) and a 401(k) match from the employer. That's the second big category. Then the third big category is leave. So that's a combination of paid vacation and sick. So we like to talk to our clients, and I even think SHRM does a lot of this, talking about the big three categories and then building around that. But over the last couple of years we've seen proliferation of benefits around those categories. I mean, even SHRM own research says that you guys surveyed 175 available benefits two years ago. That number's up over 250 now. So we continue to see growth in benefits around those big three, and I can talk to you more about those.
Anne Sparaco:
Exactly. And speaking of that, what are you seeing as far as new benefits concepts or models that are maybe causing some buzz and conversation or really taking off?
Jeff Williams:
Yeah. I think the one that has come absolutely mainstream through the pandemic up until now is mental health. So mental health is now in virtually every benefit program we see. And I'd say it's first cousin. Again, a pandemic-related benefit that's hit near ubiquity is telehealth. So the ability to get remote care is in virtually every plan. But now we're seeing even more interesting benefit categories around things like... Well, let's pick one. Let's pick the bodily autonomy category. So offering women in particular options that they didn't have before relative to in vitro fertilization. Relative to other areas around the ability to control the destiny of their body. And we were seeing that present itself in almost a quarter of health plans, whereas you would've seen that category of issue not present at all 5, 6, 7 years ago.
Anne Sparaco:
And SHRM is really big on inclusion and creating those options to have employees feel more included. And one of the things that really stuck out to our researchers when I was talking to them about the 2024 employee benefits survey was the growing discussion around menopause related leave. And that is something I think a lot of people may not even realize could exist within their company. Can you tell us about that?
Jeff Williams:
Sure, I can. I mean, you think about the category of women. So women between the ages of 45 and 54 are 10% of the workforce. It's a big number, and I think it's an area that has been in the background from a wellness perspective that's become more talked about, more mainstream and is being more addressed by companies. We don't see a lot of take up yet, but we do see it's very much on trend to provide menopausal care support as well as even some firms, a small number, but some firms are now offering some type of menopausal leave, which is a brand new benefit we're seeing in that category and quite progressive. And for the audience, I would say this is one to really be in tune with who your workforce is, where your demographics are, and is this a benefit that could really resonate with your own value proposition based on who your people are and what they need.
Anne Sparaco:
And we talked about what's growing in popularity and the demand that's still there, but what about those benefits that companies may have still in place that may be antiquated or they may need some restructuring, a different perspective brought in. Can you talk about some of the examples there and what's changing?
Jeff Williams:
Sure. And maybe a great example of that is the structured defined benefit pension plan. Those plans have been in structural decline literally probably since the 1980s. And now we see that less than 20% of employers have defined benefit programs, yet we still want to offer secure retirements. So we've seen that shift to 401(k), we've seen that shift to Roth IRAs, and we're seeing more vehicles to drive financial security, be it student loan repayment, be it support for college savings. So we're seeing that notion of financial security play out a little bit differently in variable plans, but we do see it still very much on trend to offer some type of financial security benefit to folks. And there's lots of ways to get help in figuring out what to do in that area. And we can talk about that too, if you'd like.
Anne Sparaco:
Exactly. And please elaborate on where you can get help.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah. So the first thing I do, and at the risk of playing a commercial announcement for SHRM, I would spend some time in the employee benefit survey. I think there's some tremendous information there about what peer groups are doing. I went to a session yesterday for the big reveal of this year's study and it was packed. There's lots of people. There's really great information in there. I'd spend some time on that.
I'd also talk to your broker. So if you have a broker, talk to them about where you are and what their advice is relative to your population. I think there's opportunities to talk to companies like ours. We can give you great perspective on what we're seeing, and we can also give you lots of insight as to what are participants actually using. So what will resonate with your folks? So there's a lot of free, maybe not free, but there's a lot of information out there. If you spend your time on the research. So there's a lot of great stuff out there to access.
Anne Sparaco:
Absolutely. It's almost endless. So we're at a time where we're seeing a lot of crossroads come up in the workplace where a lot of different generations, a lot of different demographics are coming into one workspace. If anybody listened to John E.C, Taylor Jr.'s opening conference speech during term '24, he talked about how we used to work in binary ways, and now we're more non-binary. We have to think differently. And what are some of the latest trends you're seeing with these different demographics? These younger generations come in as the older generations are maybe nearing retirement, or they're doing phased retirement where they're still there and they want to make the most out of these benefits?
Jeff Williams:
Yes. It's a complex environment out there. We have five active generations in the workforce. Each of those generations, and I don't want to be too general because there are, everyone has their own specific needs, but in general, we see trends between those five generations that it's very difficult to offer a benefit program that can have breadth to cover all the needs of those generations. So on the boomer front, they're trying to figure out their pre-retirement situation. They're trying to secure health outcomes in retirement. We see a lot of focus on that offboarding of a career perspective.
The Gen X population, I find is really, really compelling. Maybe it's because I am one, but they're this triple threat play. So they're making decisions about elder care. They're making decisions for themselves. They're making decisions about their family, and they're influencing the Gen Z population selection of benefits, who's coming into the workforce. So Gen X almost sits at this really interesting spot there.
And then Y is a little bit more around, yes, they want health outcomes, but they also want more flexibility. They want more choice. They want more autonomy in what they select. And the millennials and Z we find really want much more flexibility, much more career development, much more energizing work. They want to work for companies that care for the people and care for the planet. And that shows up in what they want to select from a benefit provider, and they want pet insurance.
Anne Sparaco:
Yes, I've been hearing that a lot more often lately. So yes, absolutely. I love what you're bringing up, all these talking points and employers, they have a responsibility to open up a dialogue with their employees to really understand, not just get a quick survey, but really dig deep into what their needs. How do you suggest employers going about opening up that dialogue? Define that balance of how do we retain talent, and how do we offer that flexibility to support your personal life and work-life integration?
Jeff Williams:
I think it starts as many things do in a company with who are we? What's our culture? What do we value? What do we want to be, and how can we offer benefit programs that are congruent with those aims? I think having a healthy introspection around the culture we're trying to build and the investments we want to make in our people, I think is a great, great place to start. Then I think there's lots of great ways to pull your people. You can ask them what they want, be prepared to get answers, but you can ask them. There will be opportunities in your employee engagement surveys. Often in the free form questions you see lots of suggestions about things that matter. If you have a younger workforce, they may be pushing you for childcare. If you have an older workforce, they may be pushing you for menopausal. So there's lots of variation, but don't lose those opportunities that you have already.
And then focus groups. You can pull people together across wide sets of your organization and get some feedback on what would matter the most. And then again, query your ecosystem, your broker partner, your benefits administration partner, your advisors, get some perspective on what's going on and what you can afford. And then if you're going to put new benefits in, make sure that you're doing it in a way that drives utilization and adoption. There's few things worse in a benefit program than having these a pray and spray approaches of having lots of benefits that are poorly utilized. So if you have them out there, they're not being utilized, they're not helping your people, get them out of there and focus that investment on things that are going to drive a much better outcome for your team.
Anne Sparaco:
You already answered my next question, it's about the budget and people have to take into consideration, like you said, where you're investing, where you are making the most out of that investment. Because if you're investing into a certain benefit but your employees really aren't using it, then what's the point? So I love that you said that, and John E.C, Taylor Jr. also brought this up as well when it came to the health benefits, the gym membership and other options to keep your employees healthy so later down the road, they don't have to pay maybe as much for certain medical problems. That's a tricky situation because you have people who maybe they don't really want to work out, or they want other options. How do you explore that complicated area?
Jeff Williams:
I'll do it in the form of an example. My former employer put in a wellness benefit, and that wellness benefit was really an online engagement platform that wanted you to do some things. That wanted you to enroll and it wanted you to take certain steps relative to your health. And there were some incentives around utilizing that program. And when they pitched it to us, they said, "We can demonstrate healthier outcomes and healthier populations based on the engagement with this platform." And sure enough, it was really, really clear. There were three populations in our company.
Those that didn't engage at all had the worst health outcomes. Those that engaged but didn't follow through had the second worst health outcomes. The people that engaged and followed through had the best health outcomes. So we could literally draw a straight line to a very affordable benefit, helping drive a healthier work population and save us money on our healthcare costs. So I think evaluating those options and where there's a real return on investment is critical. If you think about benefit loading in a large company, it can be 25% of your salary base. Make sure you're investing those dollars really wisely and think about the choices you're making in some benefits that may not be as mainstream now, but could drive significantly better health outcomes for people.
Anne Sparaco:
Absolutely. And I know that in the 2024 benefits survey, we also talked about professional and career development benefits. Can you talk about some of the latest trends you're seeing in professional and career development? We know artificial intelligence is coming into play with all of this and helping people get the proper training that they need.
Jeff Williams:
Yes. So I would say that what benefit has been around for a very long time, it has been the tuition reimbursement benefit. And I think in some companies it's an underutilized benefit. So there's this expectation of internal training that often companies are struggling to keep up with from a budgeting perspective. And sometimes those budgets in tougher economic times get contracted. I think there's a tremendous opportunity in leveraging a platform that already exists. In tuition reimbursement, to have that re-educate the workforce. But I do think you're on point. Again, it's what's the strategic direction of your business? If the strategic direction of your business is we need to expand revenues and reduce costs through AI, not supporting that with re-skilling the workforce you have and just expecting to go out and find a talent pool that's really expensive, really scarce and fully employed right now, is maybe not the way to go about it. I had look at making that investment in the people you have already. Not everyone's going to make it, but it's definitely worth the shot.
Anne Sparaco:
And speaking of that type of investment, we were talking about it a little bit by, I'd love to reiterate a bit if that's okay. With employees being so unique and diverse, what are some ways employers can offer robust and dynamic benefits packages to their employees without breaking that bank with getting the most on that return on investment?
Jeff Williams:
Yes. I think it's offering choice with navigation. So what I mean by that is, if you look at the almost dizzying array of issues that a typical faces. They're trying to have health insurance, home insurance, car insurance. They're trying to save for a 401(k). They're trying to put their kids through college. They may have a student loan themselves, and there's these thing called spending accounts and what do I do with that and how do I leverage that and what are the rules around that? Meanwhile, about half of the US population can't come up with 500 bucks in an emergency.
So you've got all this stuff going on in their lives, yet a lot of folks just don't have the money and maybe don't have the time to understand what's the best way to spend that next available dollar. So I think figuring out how to help the participant sort out what matters most. For example, we see often people are over insured and under saved. How can we help people move from one to the other? I think that if you're an employer, maybe figuring out what the benchmark is, where you need to be competitive and what's congruent with your culture. Again, I think a nice benchmark for that is 25% of your salary cost.
I think getting really tight around what your culture is, what your people need, and how to meet them where they are. Maybe where they are is they need sabbaticals and flexible vacations because they're working really hard and they need more time off. But maybe you've got a heavy retail environment where you've just got to do auto enroll and 401(k) because you've got to give these people some financial security so they can focus at work. Again, it's what business are you in, how do you make it simple and how do you help folks with the navigation because it's tough to figure out.
Anne Sparaco:
And I think communication is such a big part. We've discussed this about how employers can get feedback from their employees to really understand the needs of the company overall and the diverse needs. And communication, we've seen in our mental health survey in May that a lot of people are afraid to speak up and ask what mental health resources there are through the benefits of their own company because they feel like there's a stigma. They feel like somebody may look at them the wrong way if they say, "I need help," and other benefits as well. Maybe they don't even know it exists and they don't even know how to go about asking. Do you recommend any strategies for communication channels, not just for feedback, but to also educate the employees consistently on what is available for them?
Jeff Williams:
Yeah. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got as a first-time manager 25 years ago was from my chief human resource officer, and I asked her, "What's your best piece of advice?" And she said, "Remember that one in five people in the workforce are mentally ill," and it's always stuck with me. And those numbers are closer to one in three now. So if we're not in the main addressing this, we're missing the point of something that's prevalent everywhere our workforce today.
So I think the simplest way to give your participant the safety to figure out what's going on is... Odds are if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have an EAP program. Point your people at that program and emphasize the confidentiality of the usage of that program. Your EAP provider could be a tremendous source of resources and advice and can do so in a confidential way to the participant. I've worked as an executive at a few very well-known companies in the United States, and I assure you not once have I ever seen an employee's name associated with a mental health situation using an EAP provider. We just don't get that information. I have no idea who consumes those services in my company and people should feel really, really safe accessing.
Anne Sparaco:
I love that you brought up a piece of advice that you've gotten before because it really sticks with you when you're learning and growing is such an industry when somebody really just says something that sticks with you. I love to hear that. And we've talked about a lot of what's happening right now, what's happening today, and that is the point of this podcast. But I would love to pick your brain on what is really coming for us tomorrow? What's coming for the future? Can you talk about what you think we may see moving forward and how we can pivot to stay on top, to stay up to date?
Jeff Williams:
I'd say there's a couple of macro trends I pay attention to. One is the continued lack of will at the federal level to legislate across the country. So I think what we're seeing is a tremendous amount of downloading to the states to figure it out because we've got congressional gridlock. So what's going on is each state is doing very unique and different things, which makes it really hard to keep up, makes it really hard to stay compliant. And I would advise staying really close to your partners to help you navigate that. I mean, just think about if you had a business that operated in four states, let's pick them, Texas, Florida, California, New York, how would you navigate that from a benefits' perspective, a compliance perspective, and making sure you're staying on side with those populations? Very, very different state laws.
I'd say the second trend is the demographics. You can pick your favorite stat on this, but the Gen Xers and Boomers are going to be departing the workforce over the next decade, and we're going to have Y, Z and millennials running corporate America in the next 10 to 15 years. I think that's going to create a monstrous amount of change, both in the way corporations are run, the cultures they create, and the benefits offer. So I'd say this macro trend of on average, a fairly financially secure and set population leaving the workforce and a population that maybe is not doing as well coming in underneath them. I think there's some interesting opportunities to provide safety and more of a thoughtful approach to benefit structures.
I'd say the last trend I'd hit from a macro perspective, and maybe they're first cousins of one another, simplicity and personalization. We've talked a little bit about it. Making things easier and simpler for the participant by the use of technology. I think there's some tremendous emerging tools in the artificial intelligence space that are going to get better and better and better, and helping to personalize that experience and simplify the decision-making, and to give employees confidence they're making good choices, to give them the peace of mind, to be healthier mentally and perform better at work. I think that whole category of innovation is just going to get better and better and better over time.
Anne Sparaco:
And before we sign off, we talked about the great advice that you received. Can you leave one piece of great advice for employers out there who are looking to navigate the benefits world?
Jeff Williams:
Be congruent with who you are. Your employees will see through messages that are not authentic in the way you deliver your benefits. So if you say you value A, B, C or D, make it show up in your benefit programs so you don't have this dissonance among your employee population of, "Wait, they're saying they value this, but I'm getting this in my benefits." And that's not going to be the same for any employer. And again, you can get lots of advice and support, but my most important advice would be who you are. Right through your business strategy, right through your benefit programs.
Anne Sparaco:
Stay authentic. I love that. It's wonderful. Thank you, Jeff, so much for your insight. It was wonderful having you talk about the latest benefits trends. And if you want to learn more about this, you can learn more on shrm.org/allthingswork. That is where you can find a lot more of on our content with our podcast. And before we sign off, we encourage everyone to follow, like, share and subscribe, comment on our social media. We want to hear your thoughts and we want you to be part of the conversation. For All Things Work, I'm Anne Sparaco.
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