Stay HR Savvy with HR Elements® August 2026 Edition | Exclusive Insights for UBA Partner Firms

Employee Benefits From Offered to Used: Helping Employees Navigate Benefits Employers spend significant time and resources designing competitive benefits packages. However, offering a robust benefits program and ensuring employees understand—and actually use—it are two very different challenges. MetLife research highlights this gap: only 57% of [...]

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Employee Benefits

From Offered to Used: Helping Employees Navigate Benefits

Employers spend significant time and resources designing competitive benefits packages. However, offering a robust benefits program and ensuring employees understand—and actually use—it are two very different challenges.
MetLife research highlights this gap: only 57% of employees fully understand their benefits coverage, while 72% want communications tailored to their specific needs. Before adding new perks, HR teams should ask whether employees are truly leveraging the benefits they already have.
The Benefits Awareness Gap
While core coverage like health insurance and retirement plans are widely understood, secondary and voluntary benefits often slip through the cracks:
  • Mental Health Resources: Employees know programs exist but struggle to find how to book an appointment.
  • Financial Wellness Tools: Staff often assume these resources apply only to specialized or executive situations.
  • Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): Introduced briefly during onboarding, EAPs are easily forgotten by the time a real need arises months later.
Communication Should Extend Beyond Enrollment
Open enrollment usually triggers a flood of emails, webinars, and policy guides. Once the enrollment window closes, communication drops off—yet life events do not follow an annual calendar. Education works best as a year-round, targeted initiative. Connecting specific benefits to relevant moments throughout the year makes them actionable when employees need them most.
Making Benefits Actionable
  • Frame in Real-World Scenarios: Shift from formal plan terminology to practical context. For example, instead of stating “Our EAP is active,” explain: “If you need confidential help with stress, family concerns, or financial planning, your EAP is a great place to start.”
  • Centralize Information: Maintain one reliable, easy-to-access portal for all benefits details and contact info.
  • Empower Managers: Give leaders enough high-level information to direct employees to HR resources without needing to act as benefit experts.
  • Analyze Utilization Data: Review low-usage programs and survey employees to identify where communication falls short.
Workplace Culture

The Post-Summer Reset: Rebuilding Focus without Burning People Out

Late August brings a transitional phase: vacations wind down, projects stall, and pressure mounts toward year-end goals. While pushing for an immediate surge in activity is tempting, effective leadership requires restoring focus without pushing teams to burnout.
Clarify Priorities Over Increasing Pace
Gallup’s burnout research reveals that 40% of global employees report experiencing significant daily stress, driven by unclear expectations and heavy workloads. Staggered summer schedules leave teams out of alignment.
Before accelerating output, establish a clear hierarchy:
  1. Identify the top 60-to-90-day focus areas.
  2. Communicate what project goals have shifted.
  3. Decouple what is urgent from what can be delayed or stopped.
Distinguish Activity from Real Engagement
Packed calendars and constant messaging do not equal productivity. Gallup’s findings emphasize that managers drive 70% of the variance in team engagement, yet only 29% of U.S. workers report receiving recognition for good work in the past week. Sustainable momentum relies on actionable feedback, reasonable response boundaries, and explicit recognition of progress.
Dear HR Manager

Protecting PTO

Q: One of our managers regularly emails and texts employees while they are on PTO. He says it is only for important items, but employees report feeling like they can never fully disconnect. How should I address this?
Dear Protecting PTO,
The underlying issue isn’t just the messages themselves—it’s the unspoken expectation to respond. If staff feel required to monitor inboxes on vacation, they are not actually getting time off.
To resolve this issue:
  • Define Urgency Clearly: Work with the manager to establish what constitutes a true emergency vs. a routine task.
  • Set Coverage Standards: Require explicit out-of-office coverage plans before leave starts. Time-sensitive items must default to a designated backup.
  • Model Leadership Boundaries: Remind management that actions override written policies. If leaders routinely interrupt time off, employees will assume constant availability is mandatory.
Employees should be able to take approved time off without feeling like they are quietly on call.
– HR Manager