Using advanced analytics to improve employee benefits

Employee satisfaction is key when it comes to maintaining a happy and productive workforce. If your employees feel like they could have a better experience somewhere else, they will leave at the first chance they get. That’s why it’s so important to offer a working environment, employee benefits, and payment system that satisfies employees without costing more than you can afford.

Analytics can be used to ensure that this is being executed effectively, recognize where dissatisfaction is taking place, and help solve any issues. In this Pacific Prime Dubai article, we discuss how advanced analytics can be used to improve employee benefits.

How advanced analytics can enhance employee benefits

Even though HR professionals have access to more organizational data than ever before, many still struggle to show data-driven budget requests and business proposals to management. Whether they lack the right data or the expertise to interpret the data that’s there, this issue continues to worsen during a time when management expects business cases to be supported by hard data.

In order to do this, HR needs to forget about trusting their gut and listening to hearsay and focus on strategies backed by hard data instead. There are many data-driven practices that can help with benefits management, especially as healthcare costs continue to rise.

Increasing healthcare costs

As the costs of medical treatment continue to grow, so does the extra pressure on HR to introduce new methods. However, many HR professionals find it difficult to diverge from traditional cost management methods. For example, if an insurer increases an employee benefits policy’s premiums, HR tends to start looking at renewal. But the strategy isn’t that impactful since they’ll often get 6 to 8 percent off a premium.

The savings are not continued after the initial year, especially when premium increases are predicted to double in a five-year period. To start with, HR can integrate hard data during negotiations with management regarding budget requests. When used correctly, this information can change beliefs about benefits and their productiveness.

You can begin by analyzing your existing benefits expenditure and drill down to determine what is making costs higher. Additionally, monitoring your workforce’s changing demographics can help predict increases in benefits spending down the line, allowing you to consider whether these increases are affordable. Ultimately, this data will help you pinpoint cost-effective solutions that can be implemented immediately.

Applying the data

By collecting and using a large amount of data, HR can improve its organization’s benefits offerings, such as figures on sick days, absenteeism, medical claims, and employee medical checkups. While it’s common for HR to collect data, many are not using the data to make significant decisions and changes to their benefits plans.

The valuable data can be integrated into health checkups to help detect early signs of common diseases, which will eventually save money. Sick leave data can also provide similar insights and reveal costs you may be liable for, based on your workforce’s demographics.

Since employee health management is a somewhat new idea, it offers an exciting opportunity to try something new, while also leaving plenty of room for mistakes. An exceptional employee benefits plan addresses the various needs of employees while coordinating with the organization’s talent and business development strategies.

How to get started

It’s best to start by mining and viewing data for all benefits. This makes it easier for employers to decide if the benefits are serving employees in an effective way. Due to continual shifts in users’ behaviors, it’s important to reexamine benefits frequently. HR should use past and current data to improve pattern predictions and come up with a strategic approach. This insight can help them make smarter choices and better serve their workforce.

Due to the limitations of many employee benefit vendors, the following tips can help you at the start:

1. Make use of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Discuss them internally, agree on them, and use them to measure benefit vendors.
2. Collaborate with your existing vendors to find out what data they offer to support your organization’s internal analysis. Make sure you can access all the data you need, and think about changing vendors if you can’t.
3. Hold potential new vendors to the same data standards, and build a transparent relationship from the get-go.
4. Collect present and past data. Existing vendors can give you their data history, so be sure to collect at least two to threes years of information.

These analytics must extend further than basic demographics to show activity patterns. You should analyze trends across numerous data sets, such as medical, worker’s compensation, pharmacy, demographic trends, biometric screenings, and more, in order to grasp your workforce’s benefit needs. Afterward, you can begin to define what your employees’ needs are, along with the reasoning behind their needs, to make a quantitative impact.

Analytics can be used in many different ways, depending on what results you are working towards. For instance, it can be used to determine which teams are the happiest or most profitable. Likewise, it can be used to examine the frequency of meetings, pay rises, and more. Companies can use data and analysis to collect data that ultimately increases happiness and contentment within their workforce. As a result, employees are enthusiastic about work and grateful for the benefits they get, increasing productivity and improving ROI (Return on Investment).

Looking for employee benefits plans in Dubai?

At Pacific Prime Dubai, our team of employee benefit consultants is happy to offer free advice regarding employee benefits, group health insurance, and more. As a leading insurance broker, Pacific Prime Dubai offers local and international solutions to corporate and individual clients. Contact us to learn more about how Pacific Prime Dubai can help your business today.

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Jantra Jacobs

Senior Copywriter at Pacific Prime Dubai

Jantra Jacobs is a Senior Copywriter at Pacific Prime with over 10 years of writing and editing experience. She writes and edits a diverse variety of online and offline copy, including sales and marketing materials ranging from articles and advertising copy to reports, guides, RFPs, and more.

Jantra curates and reports on the results of Pacific Prime’s monthly newsletters, as well as manages Pacific Prime’s Deputy Global CEO’s LinkedIn posts. Complemented by her background in business writing, Jantra’s passion for health, insurance, and employee benefits helps her create engaging content - no matter how complex the subject is.

Growing up as a third-culture kid has given her a multicultural perspective that helps her relate to expats and their families while 8 years of working remotely have given her unique insight into hybrid work arrangements and enthusiasm for employee benefits.

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