The future of Employee Benefits lies in successful and meaningful integration

Over the last 25 years, employee benefits solutions have become highly segmented, which means employers may need to deal with two or more advisers and multiple, un-coordinated providers. Provider and benefit structure decisions are made in silos and often with a focus on direct cost rather than effectiveness.

But improving the health and retirement outcomes of people who give the most productive years of their lives to their employer, is not achieved simply by having the lowest cost structure. Instead, what we as providers, financial advisers and employers should be focusing on is putting the appropriate benefits and structures in place, aligned to key organisational objectives focused on delivering the best financial and wellness outcomes for its people.

A holistic approach that gets to the heart of employee wellness

The real question we should be asking is, how do we go about understanding what employees really need? Our team at Discovery started investigating causal links between employee benefit outcomes, and we challenged the following:

1. How can increased wellness lower an employee's insurance risk and ultimately the cost of insurance?
2. How can increased wellness improve the number of retirement years that an employee spends in good health? Could better health also reduce their healthcare costs, allow them to defer retirement, or even help them to earn an income for longer?
3. How can an employee better manage their short-term finances in a way that indirectly results in them better managing their long-term retirement plan?

By understanding the relationships between health claims and insurance risk, current wellness and retirement, and current money management and retirement - the potential of product integration becomes blindingly clear.

How can we use links between products to improve outcomes?

Fortunately, Discovery's broad product ecosystem means that we're uniquely positioned to address these interconnected issues. We can use cross-company data to infer causal relationships between variables and build pathways between products to improve case outcomes and encourage and reinforce behaviours that cut across product silos.

Through Discovery, employers and advisers have the opportunity to integrate all their employee products - unlocking value for both employers and employees. The potential is huge.

Consider, for example:

1. The convenience and cost efficiencies of having all your employee benefits under the guidance of one, single service provider - as a cohesive solution.
2. The productivity benefits that are unlocked through integrated wellness that really works to improve health and wellbeing.
3. The increased engagement from having one digital platform across products so employees really value and utilise their benefits.
4. The health insights we can identify and intervene on with tailored product solutions, as opposed to generic solutions for any employer.

The power of integration across Discovery's product ecosystem

On a practical level, imagine your employees had benefits across Discovery Umbrella Funds, Discovery Insure, Discovery Healthy Company, Vitality, Discovery Group Risk, and the Discovery Health Medical Scheme range of products. This would allow us to track variables like age, gender, psychiatrist visits, physical activity and savings habits, identify health and financial risk factors, and predict trajectories.

We can then implement or recommend timely interventions to assist employees when they need it most - from a medical referral to physio visits, financial coaching, providing relevant information timeously or debt counselling. Such interventions can go a long way towards reducing risk, improving wellbeing, and increasing productivity to the benefit of employers.

Where does our responsibility lie?

To simplify the decision-making while simultaneously steering clear of challenging the status quo, employers may be tempted to simply renew the same supplier contracts each year without checking for meaningful value over time. Or new providers may be selected based primarily on direct cost. This is understandable as there is effort and risk associated with changing providers, and direct cost is the easiest factor to compare.

But these choices may in many cases mean that employers are worse off due to foregone productivity improvements, lower price sustainability and a less impactful employee value proposition; and employees will miss out on an ecosystem of benefits that can really guide and support them towards materially better life outcomes.

I believe our joint responsibility in this industry is great because we work in an industry where the decisions we make have lasting consequences for the lives of thousands of employees', their families and their communities.

The future of employee benefits

The future of employee benefits lies in gathering, analysing, and acting on the rich data gleaned through smart, seamless product integration. Understanding the different but interconnected aspects of employee wellbeing and being able to identify risks all in one place, at the same time, is an imperative step towards improving outcomes sustainably.

Our industry's noble goal is a better informed, proactive, healthier and wealthier workforce. Will you join us in evolving towards an integrated employee benefits ecosystem that can truly deliver on that goal?