Key takeaways
Cost pressure causes both employers and employees to examine benefits and utilization more closely.
Workplace culture and engagement, in addition to compensation, are becoming more essential to recruiting and retaining talent.
Employers can use a better-informed workforce to drive a more intentional and cost-effective benefits strategy.
Discussion at Lockton’s People Solutions Fall Roundtables centered on several macro trends that are shaping today’s workforce, from healthcare costs and shifting employee expectations to recruiting, retention, and office culture. While these trends are viewed through the lens of employer cost management, conversations revealed another important dynamic: the rise of a more informed and intentional workforce.
As costs rise, employees have a greater incentive to understand how their benefits work, assess culture and experience, and advocate for the support they need. That increased scrutiny is driving organizations to think more intentionally about how they design, communicate and deliver employee benefits, and how those programs fit with the overall employee experience.
Shared healthcare cost pressure is increasing scrutiny of benefits value, and not just for employers
With healthcare costs continuing to rise, organizations are looking to both traditional and innovative cost-management strategies. In 2025, average family premiums for employer-sponsored healthcare reached nearly $27,000, representing a 6% increase from the year prior. Costs are projected to increase another 6%-7% in 2026, as factors including high-cost claims and growing prescription drug spending continue to place pressure on healthcare budgets.
Traditional cost-management strategies, such as annual negotiations and carrier competition, remain important. However, panelists also emphasized the need to determine whether benefits programs provide meaningful value, address workforce needs, and support broader business objectives. This requires organizations to look deeper than the price of programs and consider utilization, employee experience, and measurable outcomes.
Employers are not the only ones scrutinizing the value of benefits. Employees are also starting to invest more time in understanding how their benefits work, which is particularly understandable considering the increasing cost pressure they are also enduring. In 2025, employees contributed an average of nearly $7,000 toward family premiums, in addition to deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses. Health-related benefits also remain a top workforce priority, with 88% of employers describing them as very or extremely important to their employees.
This growing understanding can impact benefit utilization in different ways. On one hand, rising out-of-pocket costs may lead some employees to delay care, or avoid it entirely. While this can reduce short-term utilization, untreated or poorly managed health needs can also become more complex and costly over time.
On the other hand, employees who better understand their benefits may access and use resources that were previously overlooked. Panelists discussed this dynamic within the context of mental health and paid leave, with some noting that requests for leave increasingly coincided with existing performance concerns. While this observation is anecdotal, it highlights an emerging challenge for employers: supporting legitimate employee needs while making sure programs are sustainable and aligned with their intended purpose.
Growing employee knowledge should not be viewed simply as an administrative pressure. Rather, increased engagement can give employers a clearer picture of the resources that employees need and use most. When combined with claims information, workforce demographics, program outcomes, and employee input, this can lead employers to make more informed decisions about where to invest.
In search of talent, culture and employee experiences become differentiators
While compensation remains an important part of talent acquisition and retention, it is no longer a primary differentiator once pay is competitive within the market. Employers must therefore look beyond compensation to create a more intentional employee experience. Benefits can play an important role in those efforts, as they are one of the most tangible ways employees can experience an organization’s culture and priorities.
That experience begins during recruitment and onboarding but continues throughout an employee’s tenure. It encompasses whether new employees feel welcomed, whether the support promised during recruitment continues after they are hired, and whether benefits and workplace practices reflect the needs of employees and their families.
Rather than adding programs without a clear strategy, employers can better align programs based on factors like demographics and employee input. For example, an organization with a relatively young workforce and more women than men might consider prioritizing family-planning benefits, parental leave, or reproductive health support. Instead of simply offering more benefits, employers can make deliberate investments that employees value and that reinforce the culture leaders want to create.
In addition to benefits, workplace policy is an important and highly visible part of the employee experience. But differences in employer requirements and employee expectations can cause it to become a source of friction. As some organizations have started enforcing in-office requirements, panelists described resistance from some candidates and employees, especially those who may have entered the workforce during or after the Covid-19 pandemic. One participant reported losing 10 applicants over two months because of the organization’s full-time on-site requirement.
Several leaders shared their use of flexibility to help reconcile this friction. For many, that means allowing employees to set their own work schedules, whether that’s to accommodate doctor appointments, school drop-off or pick-up or commute times. For some, it also means one or two remote workdays per week. One participant noted that this flexibility can reduce pressures outside of work, helping employees arrive more focused and engaged. Leaders also emphasized the importance of providing a workplace that employees find functional, welcoming, and conducive to their work.
Whatever the strategy, one of the most important issues participants highlighted when it comes to workplace policy is the importance of connecting on-site requirements to business and employee-development outcomes rather than relying on broad statements about culture or collaboration, as well as being forthcoming and honest about requirements. When employees understand both what is expected and why, they can better assess whether expectations align with their long-term goals.
Generational differences can be used to boost understanding and business outcomes
While leaders at the roundtables observed friction regarding generational differences in the workforce, particularly around the pace and visibility of career advancement, compensation and on-site requirements, they also discussed strategic ways to use those differences to everyone’s benefit.
Reverse mentoring, a practice in which employees from different generations are paired to share knowledge and perspectives, can help bridge these generational gaps. Connecting participants through interests and hobbies outside of work can help them establish common ground and build stronger relationships in the workplace, which can lead to better individual and business outcomes. For example, in-person interactions may provide recent graduates with access to colleagues who are more experienced in the field, leading to informal coaching and mentorship. One leader attributed accelerated development among the organization’s most junior employees to this exposure, which builds a system that supports both individual career growth and the business’s long-term talent pipeline.
Bridging these generational divides may also allow organizations to capitalize on new technologies that are entering the workplace, as the advanced technological knowledge of younger employees can be paired with the business experience of more tenured workers.
While a more informed workforce can create friction if employee expectations and organizational priorities don’t align, it can also provide employers with insight into the programs that deliver the most value. Creating a more intentional workforce strategy can then become a form of cost-management as well: not simply reducing investments but also making more informed decisions about where investments have the most return.