As an HR or benefits leader, you live and breathe employee benefits and understand exactly how they’re impacting your workforce for good. But to justify the price tag, company CEOs and financial officers often ask for the hard dollar return on investment (ROI).
Regular, clear ROI reporting helps ensure continued support for vital benefits. Follow these best practices for demonstrating the value of your benefits program.
Plan Regular Performance Updates
Renewal isn’t the only time to analyze benefits reporting. Schedule a regular cadence to meet with company leadership and share performance updates. Consider these approaches:
- Quarterly reviews allow for timely adjustments while providing frequent visibility to leadership
- Biannual deep dives offer opportunities for more comprehensive analysis of longer-term trends
- Annual strategic planning sessions connect benefit performance to broader organizational goals
No matter your approach, predictable reporting builds trust with stakeholders.
Partner with Vendors for Better Insights
Discuss your goals and expectations with each contracted vendor, and ensure they offer reporting that’s easy to understand and leverage. When evaluating vendor relationships, look for those who:
- Provide intuitive, accessible dashboards that translate complex data into actionable insights
- Offer customizable reporting to align with your organization's specific metrics and goals
- Supply benchmark data comparing your performance against similar organizations
- Deliver training to help your team effectively interpret and communicate results
Working closely with vendors ensures you can quickly analyze and explain performance metrics when leadership asks tough questions.
Look Beyond the Numbers
While financial metrics matter, comprehensive benefits reporting should capture value beyond direct cost savings
- Employee satisfaction and retention: How benefits influence engagement and loyalty
- Productivity improvements: Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism from healthier, more supported employees
- Culture enhancement: How benefits contribute to organizational values and workplace environment
- Talent attraction: The role of benefits in recruiting top candidates in a competitive market
For example, an employee who avoids a hospital stay because of preventive care through an onsite health center represents both direct healthcare savings and prevented productivity losses—a dual ROI story worth highlighting.
Results In Action
Marathon Health offers preventive care to catch issues proactively and leverages data to ensure chronic condition interventions improve employee health. Once employees begin to engage with Marathon Health providers, most make tangible improvements.
“If you have an employee who's running 150 over 95 blood pressure, but we get them under control through medication, exercise and better diet, you can expect to save about $2,000 per year from treating that chronic condition,” says Marcus Such, Chief Actuary for Marathon Health.
Marathon Health delivers the following results:
- $1,800 annual savings per employee
- 42% reduction in ER and inpatient costs
- 67% of patients improving at least one biometric marker
- 95% patient satisfaction rate
Clients can expect to decrease their total cost of care by as much as 31% by year five. In addition, employers see healthier, more engaged workforces.
“Providing health center services is a major driving factor in keeping talent on board,” Such says. “We have clients that saw huge decreases in turnover rates after implementing a program like Marathon.”
