Beyond the Core Four: The Benefits Employees Are Actually Asking For
Medical, dental, vision, and life used to be the whole conversation. They are still the foundation, but employees no longer feel the difference there. In a year when health costs are climbing again and budgets are not, the benefits that earn real goodwill are those that ask very little of the employer’s bottom line. Two categories are leading that shift: voluntary benefits and mental health support.
Voluntary benefits are having a moment
Voluntary benefits are employee-paid options offered at group rates through the employer. These generally include identity theft protection, legal plans, pet insurance, accident and hospital indemnity coverage, and supplemental life. The employee decides what fits their life and picks up most or all the cost, so the employer broadens the menu without expanding the spend.
That math is exactly why they are gaining ground. Benefits already make up more than 30 percent of the average employee’s total compensation (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2025), and there is not much room to add to that number this year. Voluntary benefits let employers offer more choice anyway. A younger employee might value legal or student loan support. A mid-career parent might want pet coverage or identity protection. Same program, different value, one budget line that barely moves.
The real draw is personalization. Employees increasingly want benefits that reflect their actual lives rather than a one-size-fits-all package, and a well-curated voluntary lineup is one of the few ways to deliver that without a major financial lift.
Mental health is now expected
The bigger shift is in how employees think about mental health. It has moved from a thoughtful extra to a baseline expectation, and the business case has caught up.
Poor wellbeing and lost productivity cost the global economy an estimated $438 billion in 2024 (Gallup, 2025). On the other side of that ledger, employers offering strong mental health benefits come out measurably ahead. One national analysis found they were 13 percent more likely to report higher productivity, 17 percent more likely to see stronger engagement, and 10 percent more likely to show a clear return on investment (Lyra Health, 2025). Employees at companies that support their mental health are also twice as likely to report no burnout or depression (Mind Share Partners, 2025).
This all shows that ultimately, mental health support has become part of what a competitive employer is simply expected to have.
The importance of employee education
The numbers are sobering. Only 53 percent of workers know how to access mental health care through their employer’s insurance, and roughly one in four do not know whether their employer offers mental health benefits at all (National Alliance on Mental Illness). The confusion runs wider than that. One study found 86 percent of employees are confused by their benefits, only 57 percent fully understand what they are entitled to, and about 90 percent simply re-elect last year’s plan without reviewing their options (Prudential, 2025). MetLife puts the share of employees who do not fully understand their package at 45 percent.
A generous benefit nobody uses is just a cost with no return, and closing it does not require changing a single vendor. It requires communicating clearly in plain language more than once a year.
Where this leaves employers
Voluntary benefits broaden what you offer without straining the budget. Mental health support meets the expectations employees now bring with them. And thoughtful, year-round communication is what turns both into something people will value and utilize.
That last piece is worth the investment, because it is the cheapest to do and the most often skipped. Reach out to our team to help shape both the benefits lineup and the rollout that makes it resonate with your employees.
