The most overlooked metrics in employee benefits reporting

You’ve identified a change that could improve your employee benefits. You take it to the wider business, but there’s one question you can’t answer convincingly: what does the data say?  

It’s a common challenge.  

Most organisations know how much they spend on employee benefits. Many also collect general employee satisfaction scores. But these figures only tell part of the story.  

Looking more closely at absence, claims, utilisation and wellbeing data can help you understand what employees actually need and give you stronger evidence when making the case for change.  

Where is the data gap in employee benefits?

The problem isn't always a lack of data.  

Often, businesses already have plenty of it. It's just sitting in different places.  

HR might have absence and turnover data. Insurers may provide claims and rehabilitation information. Your benefits platform could have engagement figures, while employee surveys contain another layer of insight.  

Looking at each one separately makes it harder to see the bigger picture.  

This can leave benefits teams struggling to answer important questions.  

Are employees actually using the benefits we're paying for? Are particular health issues becoming more common? Is low engagement caused by the benefit itself or poor awareness? Where should we invest next?  

Without that information, it's much harder to demonstrate the value of benefits or build a strong case for further investment with senior leaders. 

What should you measure beyond total sickness days?

Knowing how many sickness days your organisation recorded last year is useful.  

But what's happening underneath that figure?  

Look at the frequency of absence, how long employees are away and whether particular teams or locations are experiencing different patterns.  

Return-to-work data can add another layer.  

You can then start looking at the reasons behind absence where appropriate data is available.  

For example, are musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions appearing regularly? Are mental health concerns contributing to longer periods away from work?  

Understanding the root causes can help you identify where additional or preventative support may be useful. 

Connect absence with group risk data

Employers often review absence and group risk insurance data separately.  

Bringing them together can provide a much clearer picture.  

For example, absence reports might show increasing short-term sickness or longer periods of absence in a particular part of the business.  

Combine that with Group Income Protection claims, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) utilisation and insurer rehabilitation data and you may start to see what's driving the trend.  

That could include MSK conditions, mental health concerns or workplace stress.  

The aim is to spot patterns earlier rather than waiting for an issue to develop into long-term absence.  

Depending on what the data shows, that could lead to more targeted support such as mental wellbeing programmes, ergonomic assessments, financial wellbeing support or line manager training.  

Group risk insurers may also provide useful information beyond the number and value of claims. This can include rehabilitation referrals, counselling usage and return-to-work outcomes.  

Bringing these insights together with internal HR and absence data can help you decide where support is most needed. 

What can healthcare claims tell you about your workforce?

Paying for private medical insurance (PMI) tells you how much the benefit costs.  

Claims data tells you much more about how it's actually being used.  

Rather than stopping at the overall value or number of claims, look beneath the headline figure.  

Depending on the information available from your insurer, this could include:  

• Common claim categories
• Claim frequency
• Average claim costs
• Areas where demand is increasing
• Inpatient and outpatient treatment
• Diagnostic pathways
• Specialist referral patterns  

These patterns can give you useful insight into employee health needs.  

For example, increasing MSK claims could prompt you to explore physiotherapy support, workplace ergonomics or preventative initiatives.  

An increase in mental health claims or EAP usage could be another signal worth investigating. It might suggest a need for additional support, manager training or a wider look at factors such as workload.  

The data doesn't give you the answer on its own.  

But it can tell you where to start asking questions. 

Turn complex claims data into something useful

Insurer reports can contain a lot of information. The difficult part is working out what actually matters.

Howden works with employers to look beyond headline claims figures and understand the trends underneath them.

That means looking at what's being claimed for, how patterns are changing and whether employees are using the available healthcare services as expected.

From there, the conversation can move from ‘what did we spend last year?’ to ‘what does this tell us about what our workforce needs next?’  

That's where claims data becomes much more valuable. 

Are you measuring wellbeing as well as benefits usage?

Some of the most important areas of employee wellbeing can also be the hardest to measure.

Mental health, burnout and financial stress aren't always visible in traditional benefits reporting.

Employee surveys and wellbeing assessments can help provide another perspective. Where appropriate and available, aggregated health screening data may also help employers understand broader workforce health trends and how these change over time.  

Employers don't need access to an individual's private health information to understand broader patterns across their workforce. Data should always be handled appropriately and in line with applicable data protection requirements.

It's also important not to look at a wellbeing score in isolation.

A score becomes much more useful when you can track it over time or compare it with relevant benchmarks.

Howden Benefits IQ, our employee benefits benchmarking tool, can help employers put their results into context by comparing aspects of their benefits and wellbeing provision with relevant market or sector data.

This can help answer a useful question: are we actually seeing an unusual issue, or is what we're seeing broadly consistent with the wider market?

Which benefits are employees actually using?

Another easily overlooked metric is utilisation.  

A benefit might look great on paper, but are employees actually using it?  

Look at registrations, usage and engagement with the services available to your workforce.  

This is particularly important where policies include additional services that employees may not realise they have access to.  

But be careful with the conclusions you draw.  

Low utilisation doesn't automatically mean a benefit has no value.  

Employees may not know it's available. They may not understand what it does. Or it could be a benefit that's incredibly valuable to the smaller number of employees who need it.  

Pair utilisation figures with employee awareness and feedback wherever possible.

If awareness is low, the first response might be better communication rather than removing the benefit. 

How can you turn benefits data into action?

You don't need a sophisticated analytics system to start making better use of your benefits data.  

Start with consistency.  

Decide which measures matter to your organisation and track them in the same way over time. This could include absence, benefits utilisation, healthcare claims, wellbeing engagement and employee feedback.  

Then start joining the dots.  

Bring together information from HR, insurers, benefits platforms, employee surveys and other relevant sources rather than reviewing each report in isolation.  

You might find that several seemingly unrelated figures are telling you the same thing. 

Add context through benchmarking

Internal data tells you what's happening in your business.  

Benchmarking helps you understand how that compares with other organisations.

Comparing areas such as benefits provision, utilisation and wellbeing indicators with relevant peers can highlight where you're performing differently from the market.

It can also add useful context when you're making a business case for change.  

Instead of simply saying engagement is low, for example, you can understand whether it's low relative to an appropriate benchmark. 

Focus on a few meaningful metrics

More data isn't necessarily better.  

A 50-page benefits report isn't much use if nobody knows what to do with it.

Focus on the measures that connect most closely with your workforce and business objectives. Then explain what has changed, why it matters and what you recommend doing next.  

That's much easier for senior stakeholders to act on. 

How can better reporting strengthen the business case for employee benefits?

Benefits reporting shouldn't just describe what happened last year.  

It should help you decide what happens next.  

Good reporting can highlight where employees need more support, where existing benefits aren't being fully used and where investment may be delivering value.  

It can also make conversations about budgets much clearer.  

Rather than asking for additional investment based on assumptions, benefits teams can show the patterns they're seeing and explain why a particular change is being recommended.  

Over time, the same measures can then be used to see whether that change had the intended effect.  

The goal isn't to measure everything.  

It's to measure what matters, understand what the numbers are telling you and use that information to make better decisions. 

Want to get more from your employee benefits data?

Howden Employee Benefits can help you bring together benefits, claims and workforce data, benchmark your provision and turn the findings into practical next steps.  

Talk to Howden Employee Benefits about making your benefits reporting work harder for your business. 

Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing Limited is part of the Howden Group. Registered in England and Wales under company number 2248238, with its registered office at One Creechurch Place, London EC3A 5AF. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Financial Services Register No. 312841).    The Financial Services Register can be accessed through www.fca.org.uk