: Welcome to today's webinar. From data to action, what employees really think and strategies for better health and business outcomes. I have a few housekeeping notes before we begin. If you have any questions or technical concerns, please use the Q&A module on your screen. You can resize and minimize the different modules on your screen by using the options in the top right corner of each module. Attendees will receive the recording of today's event. Look for that email within 24 hours post-event. We encourage you to put your questions in the Q&A module throughout the event for our speakers to address, while general comments will go into the attendee chat. You can also use the reaction module in the menu at the bottom to relay items you may like or want to express an emotion to. And now I will pass the stage to Lane Thomas Conway, Vice President, Delivery Enablement and Engagement, Alight Solutions.
Lane Thomas Conway: Lane Thomas Conway Thanks so much. I'm glad to be here with everyone. Certainly, right. We wish that we had a magic wand to give you, you know, right inside the brains of all your employees. But while we don't have that, we definitely have a lot of data to share from some of our proprietary research, as well as our insights in working with clients and their employees around that. their feelings and needs around health care and their well-being. And so we're going to share some of that with you today. I'm looking forward to it. As they said, I'm Lane Thomas Conway. I work in our delivery organization, helping to enable our colleagues, our clients and their customers across the benefit spectrum. And I'm joined today by my colleague, Amy. So Amy, why don't you let us know what you're going to be sharing?
Amy Clempe: Hello, everybody. I'm Amy Clempe. I am the product strategy leader for Alights Benefits Administration Solutions. So myself and my team are responsible for all of the services and solutions and capabilities that we make available to our clients when it comes to administering all of these important programs. So today I'm gonna cover what we'll get started with. So we're going to dive into the latest data on employee engagement and wellbeing. We're gonna talk a little bit about the growing regrets that employees have about their healthcare and their needs. We'll talk specifically around about specific keys that you can take away from this to help drive utilization, break barriers, and connect people to what matters. And of course, at the end, we'll answer your questions. So we're going to start here with the state of employee engagement and well-being in just one minute, because I see that... My notes are not there. Okay, so the workplace and workplace sentiments are changing rapidly. So this data is going to be a great way for you to keep up with what's going on and where the efforts you make can be meaningful and effective. And we are going to start today with a poll. Oh, no, sorry. Take it to the poll. Oh, sorry. All right. So first of all, when we get into the study, I wanted you to know that you can either scan this QR code or you can download the information, I believe, in the event info or there's a resource center where you can download that information. Okay. All right. Sorry, folks. I'm...
Lane Thomas Conway: I'll jump in and tell everybody about the mindset study before we kind of dive into some of the data itself. So here at Light, we've been doing our employee mindset study for 15 years. It is our kind of landmark research study, giving us a lot of great trend data across the years that we've been doing this around how people are feeling about both their employee experience, their workplace experience, their personal well-being, as well as the benefits and total rewards that employers are offering to them. We survey 2,500 workers across the U.S. The one requirement that we ask is that they work for an employer with at least 1,000 employees. It's really kind of in that mid and large market space, not really the mom-and-pop small business employees, but really trying to understand across a good – representation of demographics, right, gender, generation, income level, and even industry, so that we get a really good sense of what the U.S. employees are wanting, both from their employee experience, from their culture, from the benefits that are offered, the technology that they're using both at home and at work, and really just giving us the all of this great insight into what people are feeling and thinking and wanting. And so all the data that you see here today, we're going to be covering a lot of it. It's really all based in this research study that we conducted in Q2 of this year. And so we're excited to kind of ground everything in the data and then give you insights along the way that should help us kind of bring to life some of the things that we think you as employers can be doing to help your employees.
Amy Clempe: Yep. Thanks, Lane. I appreciate you jumping in on that. And I guess I just wanted to say that I hope that by the end of this, we think you'll agree that when you show employees that you're listening, that you're approaching benefits and programs from their perspective, and that you're supporting them not only as they're choosing benefits, but as they're using them, that's where you're going to get the best health and business outcomes.
Lane Thomas Conway: Great. Well, let's jump into that poll question that we were talking about. Out of curiosity, right, we just want to see how people are feeling about this, right? How many employees said that they would be willing to make a job change in the coming year? So let's see if we get everybody to give everybody a second to take the poll question.
: Okay. Let's see. We'll give everybody another five seconds. Looks like we've got a couple of those coming in. Okay. All right.
Lane Thomas Conway: So let's see what everybody gave us as an answer. So it looks like that we've got 33% said that 64% said more than half of employees would be willing to jump. Another quarter said 50%. Another quarter said 42%. And kind of rounding out the bottom, only 19%. So, right, like retention and the kind of war for talent, right, has been going on. In earnest here, you know, since kind of COVID and a lot of things changing. But what we found this year was actually a little bit surprising to us. And that's that 42% of people said that they were kind of open to making a change, either actively looking or kind of open if something came their way. But that means that 58% actually intended to stay with their current employer. And this was a jump year over year. So that need and that desire for job stability, we saw that kind of increase in employees in 2025. And so what we also know, right, is the reasons that people want to look for a new job or the reasons that they are willing to stay or change their minds, right? Again, pay is always going to be number one. Right. That's always going to be at the top of the list, certainly from a motivation when it comes to people who are thinking about leaving. But what we know is that things like workplace flexibility and the different ways that that is defined, as well as things like better benefits. Right. A lot of what we'll be talking about today do play a role in this. Right there. You have to kind of have these equations of right why you want to stay or why you want to leave. And there are multiple things that play into that, not just pay. And so something like better benefits was not necessarily as big of a driver like three years ago. It was really about pay and workplace flexibility, I think, coming out of COVID. But we're seeing that increase, right, in the folks who are looking for things like better benefits and more growth opportunities playing a bigger part, again, as that pendulum swings. So that's what we know about kind of people's plans. Let's talk a little bit about their experience overall. So, and we've got some good news to share here, right? So while like headlines talk about kind of general worker malaise and like dissatisfaction, our data actually shows some positive strides. This year, we saw more increases when it comes to how employees are feeling about their work experience. And those jumps are even more impressive when we look at the results over the past two years. So right across the board, about two thirds of employees are feeling pretty good about their experience, including when asked about things like there's a positive sense of energy and excitement at my company. Right. I feel like I belong at my workplace. I'm inspired to do my best work and that I feel like I can be my best self. Right. And even when we ask kind of questions around, are you having a good, great or awesome work experience again, right. About two thirds of folks. say that right and as you think about like your own experiences right i think we know that clients and employers are out there really investing right in that employee experience and i think it is certainly resonating if we then look on the the other side of kind of personal well-being and how you think about your own well-being we've tracked these health perceptions for the entire 15 years of doing this study and really kind of diving into the different well-being dimensions for the last seven years, right? And we've seen those feelings truly rise and fall over the years, right? And a lot of that is dependent upon kind of the current environment and what's going on, right? But this year's survey really shows a positive shift with 47% indicating that their overall well-being couldn't be better, right? And so we've seen this kind of rise back up Or a bounce back. We also see these kind of rises across the different well-being dimensions, right? So we saw a 5% gain in both social and mental well-being, which is encouraging. We know that HR has invested in kind of mental health and manager training to support these types of things, and that is certainly resonating. We know that professional and career well-being, you know, that we're seeing some smaller gains there, but again, on the rise. What we also know is that financial well-being always comes in the lowest of all of the dimensions that has been consistent every year in our study, but we did see a slight improvement of three points up to 42%, right? So definitely some great things to build on and it's certainly promising. But we would also say that there is still work to be done, right? Given that the positive ratings account for less than half of the respondents, right? And we're going to be talking about what some of those barriers are to seeing even greater results. greater increases and greater improvements. And so we're going to talk through some of that right now. So I'm going to turn it back over to Amy to kind of talk about, you know, the particular dimension around health, health wellbeing and how people are feeling and how they're navigating that.
Amy Clempe: That's right. Employees are certainly struggling when it comes to navigating their care even when they have great supporting resources. But before I go on, I just want to also mention that here at Alight, we have a consultant and broker advisory council, and we met with them recently. And when we asked them what the biggest challenge was that their clients were dealing with when it comes to managing benefits, they said it was actually helping employees navigate the very complex benefits ecosystem. In terms of top priorities for 26 and beyond, it certainly is managing benefits spend, so no really surprise there. But their input is very much aligned with our findings and the recommended key focus areas to optimize success that we'll talk about a little bit later. Great. So we're going to move into another poll because one of the themes I think you're hearing today is around employee regret, specifically regret around their healthcare decisions. So we wanted to know what you think the top regrets are. Is it about their ability to afford the care that they have already sought and received? Is it the ability to understand where and to who to go to to get that care? Is it because they don't trust the care that's available to them? And maybe it's regretting a decision that they chose not to seek care at all. Or is it all of the above? So let's see what those results are. Will I be able to see results? Do I need to do? Okay, so thank you. Okay, so a quarter of you said affording the care, third navigating care. Oh, interesting. Trusting the care was at the bottom or going care is low as well. All right, and a third of you said all of the above. And the answer really is all of the above. We wish there was a magic bullet that would address all of these regrets, but there isn't. So using healthcare benefits, it's really a very personal and individual struggle. So it's important that as we're working on our programs, we need to employ a variety of tactics to address these various concerns. Okay. So, the struggle is very real, and it's on the rise. Workers are, as we said, struggling to afford their coverage, both in terms of what they're paying through their paycheck, as well as at the point of service when they're using those benefits. They're struggling with getting the right care from the right providers. and trusting that they made the right decisions. And workers don't feel like they're getting the right level of support that they'd like from their employer. They don't trust that the company efforts to improve their well-being are genuinely in their best interests. So there are certainly some trust issues that we saw through the data. So let's talk for a moment about workers' choices when it comes to enrolling in their health benefits. So while workers may change the plans they enroll in for different reasons, the overall rate of enrollment in medical insurance is quite high at about 80%. And then for the higher paid workers, those earning more than $60,000, that rate of enrollment rises to nearly 90%. So it's Of course, it's not a surprise that enrollment rates are going to be lower for the lower paid workers, which corroborates the affordability struggle. So the good news is that two thirds of the people felt confident about their most recent plan elections. Enrollment was easy because they had the right tools and they had the right information to make good decisions. But even when they were enrolled, more and more people aren't getting the care that they actually need. So last year, and you could see it rising, but for 2025, 56% of people said that they needed some type of healthcare service that they didn't receive. Now, often that's due to the cost of those services. That's the number one reason. But also the time it takes to get the care and because they don't know where to go or whom to go to get it. And some people avoid care altogether because they fear the diagnosis. That's a very real problem as well. But perhaps more unsettling is that people who did use their healthcare still had regrets.
Lane Thomas Conway: So we know that regret is a big deal, right? And what has been one of the biggest surprises of our data over the last couple years is this question that we ask very directly, have you regretted a healthcare decision in the last 12 months? This current survey from earlier this year, we saw that 6 in 10, so 60%, said that they did regret a healthcare decision. And as you see here, that number is up in the double digits, right, over the last two years. We continue to see these like eight to nine point increases year over year, right? And so despite all of our energy and efforts on the employer side to make people better healthcare consumers, unfortunately, right, people are still struggling to make the right decisions at the right time, And that there are a lot of issues in terms of kind of why this is, right? So we ask a follow-up question, which is like, what did you regret? And what we see is there is not one size fits all, right? We see a healthy amount of people across the board. giving us a variety of reasons, right? So they either jumped into treatment or a service without asking the right questions, right? They took advice from somebody who wasn't a healthcare professional. So somebody, you know, asking Joe, the neighbor about what medicine they should take, right? Maybe it's not going to get them the desired outcome, or maybe even that they got bad advice from a healthcare professional, right? So they, We know that sometimes that whole kind of concept, even though we didn't see it in the answers today, that there are issues with trusting their doctor or trusting advice that they get and that people are not necessarily feeling like they're maybe getting the best direction because they're maybe not choosing the right provider. And then the last one in terms of order of importance is they didn't get a second opinion, right? So again, kind of taking the first piece of advice they get or first line of treatment and not kind of doing the due diligence to get more information. When we dig into the data, sometimes we see kind of universality across the data, right? That no matter your demographics, right, that you feel the same way. Regrets is actually one where we do see some differences when it comes to certain demographic groups. So younger workers are much more likely to regret a healthcare decision. So you see that 77% of Gen Zers said that versus only 40% of boomers, right? So some of that actual experience, right, getting out there, making your own decisions year over year, decade over decade, right, does help you become a better consumer. And those younger workers are actually floundering. Definitely a bit more. Maybe not surprising, men actually regret healthcare decisions more than women. We see they're jumping into treatment, getting advice from people that they shouldn't. Those numbers tend to be much higher with men versus kind of doing that due diligence. One kind of more surprising one would be the higher income. We actually, right, you may think, okay, a lower income worker, they're going to have more regrets. Actually, higher income is much more likely to regret a healthcare decision than those who are making below $65,000 a year. And then we kind of group, and you'll hear us refer to this in a couple of different ways today, so let me go ahead and define it. We call this fully supported employee. So for us, we ask questions around different services that are available. So if you, as an employee, have a health wealth and well-being benefits platform technology that's one element of it that you've got you're enrolled in your health care plan that you're participating and have a 401k plan that you have some type of well-being website available to you and that you have some type of like financial and health management support. So whether that's kind of some element of navigation or coaching, right, that you have some ancillary support and guidance available to you. That's what we call a fully supported employee, right? And what we know is those folks who don't have all of those elements, so the non-fully supported, right, they are much more likely to to regret a healthcare decision, right? Because they don't have some of those things that will help guide them and support them as they're making those decisions. So again, really strong data that kind of signals, hey, there are things that people can be doing that can really make a difference in their day-to-day decisions about using their healthcare. When we talk about things like guidance and support, right, we know that there are still some hurdles. And we'll talk a little bit more about this later on in terms of what we can be doing right. But let's talk about some of the things that hold people back, right? We know that people are open to navigation, and we'll see some more data on this. But, you know, asking the question of would you consider even personalized contact from a nurse, an outreach, if you or a family member is were given a new or complicated diagnosis. So again, you've got this big healthcare decision facing you. Would you be open to somebody actually reaching out to you proactively to say, hey, how can we help? And seven in 10 people say, yes, I would appreciate that, right? So that's great. But in terms of actually using things like those outreach services or reaching out to navigation, we still see some barriers and we have to be able to counteract them, right? One is lack of time, right? The second is cost. And then the third is that they don't know what to do, right? And so what do we do with that information? I think to me, when I look at this is to say, what are the levers we should be considering in promoting navigation services, right? It is to save them time, right? It is to save them healthcare costs by giving them great comparisons, right? And it is to make it simple and easy to use so they know what to do, right? And so these barriers actually become a game plan for how we actually promote these types of services and help our employees. I would be remiss if we didn't talk a little bit about stress, right? We're really kind of leaning into the healthcare and physical wellbeing, but mental health is certainly an important part of the overall wellbeing. So we at least wanted to touch on it. And we know that stress has an impact on individuals as well as on their jobs. What we see is that the number of people over the last five years reporting high or moderate stress has remained very high. It's remained in that 70% range. and hasn't decreased. We know that those feelings, as I said before, by demographics, we see some slight differences, right? Gen Zers tend to feel just a tiny bit more stress than folks that are older. We see that women are more slightly stressed than men, but not huge differences. And we're talking about stress in our employees and in the workplace, right? There is more kind of looking at everybody the same. What we know is that there are different elements of stress, right? And the number one is finances, right? So as Amy was talking to us about affordability of healthcare, that plays a role in this, right? So just how people are dealing with their finances personally is a big factor of stress. Job is actually overall the second largest one. And then healthcare, actually, a quarter of people say that it is causing them stress, right? So again, if you think about those regrets and people needing services that they're not getting, all of that plays a part. The good news is, is that we've made it more accepting to talk about stress, right? So we know that 55% of people have talked openly to their manager about stress. And we've seen that number kind of consistently be over the 50%. What we saw is that as a result of the pandemic, that the number of people who they or a family member sought counseling kind of doubled, right? And so we're kind of holding again in that 50% or half of people saying that they or a family member have sought counseling. That number was in the 20s, pre-pandemic levels, right? And so we know that there are supports out there. We know that people crave them. We have to recognize that the stress that people are dealing with is going to affect their productivity and their health. And so it's important to kind of understand that as well. And finally, let's just talk about some barriers to well-being. So we ask some questions around whether living a healthy life, does it require kind of more money than you're willing to give, more time than you're willing to give, or more attention than you're willing to give? And what we see here is that we've seen these rise over the last couple of years, right? So living a truly healthy life requires more money than I'm willing to spend. That's up a point from 2023 up to over half. And then another 44% saying that living a truly healthy life requires more time than they're willing to spend. And that again is up a point. So as we think about where we're moving into, okay, what do we do with this data? This gives us some clues. as to what we can be doing to help people understand that the wellbeing programs and health programs that their employees are offering, right? Again, what's those levers about saving time, saving money, making it easier on them to do. When we ask those obstacles to actually improving their well-being, the numbers in yellow are kind of anything above a 20%. You know, what is standing in their way? Again, kind of resonates with that same question of, like, cost being really at the top across physical, mental, and financial levels. We also see things like lack of motivation from a physical standpoint, right? Like actually eating better and exercising, right? Finding those personal incentives. And then just making sure that we're, again, thinking. across things, like giving them access and helping them know what to do. So again, all great data to kind of base, here's how people are feeling about some of the specifics. But we're not here to just give you a bunch of data and say, oh, oh, woe is all of us. What we want to do now is actually turn and try to give you some what we see as keys to success in terms of driving better utilization. and getting your employees on the right track. So Amy, I'm going to let you share some of that with us.
Amy Clempe: Yes, happy to. Yeah, you're right. We've talked about a lot of barriers and problems, but we want to talk about what can you actually do to drive more and smarter usage of the health benefits and how to support employees holistically. So our mindset study does show that employees are craving real guidance to help them choose what's right for them and at the right time. So 87% want a one-stop shop for all of their health, wealth, and well-being needs, right? They want the simplicity. They want one place to go, not a variety of places to jump around. 90% are looking for personal experiences, not one-size-fits-all. And resoundingly, employees value personal and relevant messaging with regard to their benefits based on their own personal health and financial information. So they're willing to give up some of that information in return for more tailored and fully supported guidance. And on the technology front, more than 90% value the mobile app's that they can use on the go and at the point of care. Bottom line, people want to be treated as individuals with personal, meaningful guidance at the times that they need it. So more and more, employees are using the personalized navigation support either digitally or in person. You'll see here that since 2023, usage is up 12 points to 64% on electronic support, and usage is up 10 points to 59% with regard to face-to-face support. But only one in four workers say that they actually have access to the benefits navigation support through their employers. So employees are actively seeking this kind of help. And even when it's widely available, they're indicating that they still have some unmet needs. And so there are opportunities to close those gaps. The clear story here is that people value high tech and a human touch. And for employers, it's really a matter of finding the right balance. Let's see. Okay. So we're going to shift our conversation a little to share what our study shows about perception gaps, and specifically perception gaps between what HR and non-HR people think. And what we found is that there could very well be some blind spots So HR employees are more likely to understand the benefits and think that their employer genuinely care about their wellbeing. There is a significant gap with regard to the number of benefits offered, where HR thinks that the number of benefits offered is too overwhelming, yet only 9% of the non-HR workers agree with that. So they're actually looking for more. Now, some of this makes sense because HR is in the trenches with benefits, unlike the average employee. So interestingly, HR workers are much more likely to have lost trust in their employer's wellbeing efforts. And so, you know, maybe this is, you know, being able to see behind the curtain and they're feeling like what they're doing is not measuring up to what it is that they have promised to their workforce. The same blind spots play out in the questions that we asked around communications. So across all employees, about two-thirds of workers have pretty good things to say about how their employers are communicating broadly to them about pay, benefits, and other types of HR topics, which is great news, right? But this is a case where when you look at specific demographics and worker segments, it proves that the one size truly does not fit all. So what you'll see is senior leaders are much more positive about the effectiveness of the programs and the relevance of the communications. But that perception decreases for those in middle management and then really falls off for people in the individual contributor roles. And you can really see this demonstrated in the question, you know, do you think your pay benefits and well-being communications are effective? Almost eight in 10 senior management employees agree, but less than half at the lower levels in the organization feel the same. That says that there's really a need out there to improve the communication people are receiving around benefits and rewards. And wherever you see senior management, that's where the HR employees tend to fall to. Another interesting take is on the amount of communication that goes out there. When asked about being overwhelmed by general or benefits communications, senior leaders are more than twice likely to say that those communications are overwhelming versus the individual contributors who are actually looking for more. So the silver lining here is that by being aware of these potential blind spots, you can flip the narrative by communicating with employees in alignment with what they truly value.
Lane Thomas Conway: As a former communicator, Amy, like I just love hearing anything to do with like how we can communicate and connect with people better. So, and I think, right, it is very true, right? Oftentimes, and we're even talking with clients, right? It's like, oh, I don't want to send another email. I don't want to see another email. Like we're talking and telling too much, but that's not necessarily the case for lower level employees. And so it's important to kind of Again, address those blind spots and recognize that how we feel maybe as senior leaders and as HR professionals isn't how our folks out in the field. Speaking of communication, here's another one that kind of ties into that. And that is around the offerings of well-being programs and how you actually get the ROI there. So we ask about a number of specific well-being programs as well as kind of overarching kind of general well-being programs. We know that about a third of folks say they have kind of an overall well-being program offered. But we dig down into 23 different types of what I call kind of vendor-specific programs, right? So everything from nutrition to women's health to parental support, access to short-term loans, right? The kind of full gamut of different partners and vendors that are out there to kind of support your employees in their very specific well-being needs. And, you know, these have become increasingly popular, right? But a lot of times we're talking with different employers and they're like, I'm just not seeing the utilization. I'm not sure it's actually really valued. And what we would say to people who are evaluating these is, you know, what's your promotion plan around those? What is your – How are you driving and optimizing those programs? Because the value is there. It's just when people use it, right? So across those 23 programs, if you look on the right-hand side, right, across all of them, we average them together and we ask whether or not you have any of these programs available, how valuable do you think that individual program is? And we see that on average, 62% of people say that would be a valuable program to them. When we look only at the subset of people who have it available, so do you have these different programs available, and then we average that out, 76% of the respondents say, I think that these programs would be valuable to me. Where you get the ROI is when we look at the subset of people who've actually used the program. So for any given program, any of those 23 and the people that are actually using it, how valuable is that program to you? The average across that is 82% of the users of those programs find them valuable. Right. So, again, 62 percent finding a valuable isn't necessarily a bad stat. But where you see the value, where you see kind of that return on investment for offering these programs is only when people use them. So you have to have not just a benefit offering strategy. You have to have a well-being kind of promotion strategy. Because that's where people who are using it, they're saying, yeah, that was a good use of my time. And that is across the board. When we look at those specific programs, I will say that, like, year over year, which ones rise to the top as being most valuable for those people who are using them? It does vary, right? Yeah. This past year, we asked the question around men's health programs for the first time. That one was actually considered the most valuable by people that use it. Caregiver support is always in the top five. I will say that. Things like paid time off exchanges are very popular. particularly in some industries where those are offered. Things like personalized health management, we've talked a lot about. How do we make things personal? How do we make it relevant? Those are highly valued. And then kind of coming in next is heart health. Again, this one has gotten a lot more traction in the last couple years. And then anything to do with telehealth continues to be very important. Particularly for mental health, those providers can be sometimes very challenging to get in-person appointments. So having those telehealth visits is very valuable for those people that use it. When we ask why aren't you using these well-being programs if they're offered, right, again, we see relevance as the number one issue. You're not always going to be able to get around that, right? If you're not a parent, you don't need parental support. But helping people understand what are the components of some of these programs where they actually could be valuable to them. You know, caregiver support isn't for somebody that just has their parent living in their house. Those caregiver support programs can actually help you with a variety, whether or not your parent or a dependent is living across the country. Obviously, the things like time and understanding continue to be barriers, as we've talked about today. So definitely look to promote and drive that utilization. Another key, right, we couldn't have a webinar and not talk about AI, right, in 2025. It is the omnipresent trend that we're all kind of keeping in mind. And what we would say is that you definitely need to get on board with AI, is there is a growing acceptance from employees. Certainly in their own daily work, but also in their acceptance of using AI to help them navigate their health and well-being. We've asked these questions for the last few years, and we see kind of a growth across the board in every single AI question we asked. Here's a sampling. 55% say that AI is going to fundamentally change work as we know it. That's up five points from last year. We see that 43% think that AI makes their job easier. Again, another one that's increased by points. One that's particularly relevant for those of us here in the health and well-being space, right? 43% trust AI to make good recommendations. And certainly we want that in our daily work, but we certainly want that when it comes to be using ai when it comes to benefits again that's up eight points actually year over year and then when we ask a very specific question around hey are you open to sharing health data for personalized guidance again 77 say they're willing to share um data to get better health guidance and 73 say the same thing for financial guidance right and those are both up five points year over year You're never going to get 100% on this question, right? There's always going to be those folks who are a little cynical or a little bit like, I don't think so. But what we see is that there is a preponderance, certainly a large majority of people who want better guidance and are willing to give a little bit of their personal information to do it. So definitely getting on board with AI. And we've got a couple of questions that have come in around it, and we'll tackle those in a couple of minutes just to dive even deeper on the topic. Um, again, right. We would also say, right. That you got to look at these kind of hot topics and hot trends and be willing and be adaptable to kind of taking those into account and things like new therapies and benefits that are out there. One is certainly GLP ones. We asked some questions around that for the first time this last year, because it really just kind of took on a life of its own last year. And we were actually kind of surprised with some of the data. We saw that a full third of folks said that somebody in their household was covered under their insurance. So either themselves, a spouse or partner, or even a dependent child, right, had received a prescription for a GLP-1 in the last 12 months. And so, right, that was a little bit larger than we saw. We saw that the vast majority of those folks filled that prescription, so nine in 10, and actually 63% said it was covered by their insurance. So that was, again, really good data for us to understand just the prevalence of this. Again, that 11% who didn't fill the prescription, you know, a good portion of them said it was about that it wasn't covered or gave other reasons. But obviously, right, the cost of these things can be prohibitive. We know that a lot of folks think it's important overall that these things are offered by their employers and In fact, seven in 10 agree with that. Um, but on the good side for employers is that people know that to get these things covered, right. That they may be required to do other things. And right. 83% said that they would support, um, having to participate in kind of a healthy weight program in order to have it covered, right? So we can be a little more requiring of employees to get the things that are going to help them and hopefully help in the end our healthcare costs as we're thinking about, right, affecting obesity, you know, heart disease, you know, diabetes, all of those things, right? So again, we have to continue to kind of stay ahead of the trends and be really mindful of those things. So we've given you kind of seven keys, right? As we think about things like, you know, investing in navigation, making sure we're promoting the programs that are out there, thinking about hot trends like AI and GLP-1s, right? making sure that we're giving them that fully supported experience, right? So what's the payoff, right? Is it just because Amy and Lane say so? No, the data actually backs it up, right? That those folks, those fully supported employees that I described to you earlier, right, that they actually feel better about both themselves and their employers, right? And the data here shows it, right? So when we ask like that positive overall well-being question, right, it was 47% of all employees feel that way, report that they have that kind of positive overall well-being. Well, 62% of those fully supported employees feel that versus only 45% of the non-supported, right? So how you feel about your well-being, great correlation. Does your company offer the resources to help your well-being? Well, of those fully supported, 76% of them say that versus just over half of the non-fully supported. How do you feel about your employer outside of the benefit space? Eight in 10 of the fully supported employers would recommend their current employer to other people, right, versus only 61% of the non-supported. And when we ask about self-reported productivity, like do you feel always or often feel productive? Again, an astounding 83% of the fully supported employees report that versus only 70%, right? So when we say the ROI in well-being programs and offering kind of this integrated experience is a healthier and more productive and satisfied employee, some of the data would actually say that's true. So hopefully some of these things have been helpful, have given you some new things to think about. We'll quickly touch on kind of just five reinforcing tips before we get to some of your questions. So, Amy?
Amy Clempe: Yes. All right. So I think these won't be a surprise based on the different content and stories that you've heard today. The first is really challenging your perceptions of employee sentiment. So when you're designing strategies and thinking about how employees experience their benefits, just be aware that your perspective might not reflect employees' daily reality. So it's that blind spot that we were talking about earlier. Second, resoundingly, in exchange for personal and relevant support, employees are willing to share their personal information. They're willing to use technology. They're willing to participate in programs that will give them access to new benefits, like the GLP-1 that Lane was talking about. Hopefully, this data gives you permission to push the boundaries that maybe previously you might have thought were barriers. Number three, focus on reducing decision regrets and effective navigation support. So if you don't offer comprehensive support today, we recommend you look into it. If you do offer support today, take a look at it and consider if you have the right balance between the tech and the human touch.
Lane Thomas Conway: Yes, and then finally we would say, again, reinforcing that a variety of well-being programs just being offered isn't enough. You have to offer that integrated experience. Right. Making sure that it's easy to navigate to, that it's easy to see the programs that are relevant for you and that they're being promoted in a way that actually makes you excited to try them out. Right. Because that's where we see the ROI, both for the individual and for the employer. And right. Again, as you've seen across this, like personalization is is a topic that certainly isn't going away. And it's it's really become an expectation. Right. It is that key to unlocking the ROI. Right. to kind of getting away from the one size fits all and making sure that people are seeing the stuff that matters to them and participating in the programs that are going to make the biggest difference. So hopefully that's all very helpful, but wanted to spend a few minutes here as we hit the quarter to the hour, talk about a few questions. So Amy, I'm going to kind of tee up one for you. Okay, that's actually kind of it's come in a couple of times. So I'm going to leave a couple of pieces into it. So again, AI is such a hot topic right now. And, you know, curious how we're seeing even at a light how we see clients and employers kind of approaching this in their benefits space. Some people or some employers are still kind of nervous about data and governance and security. But how do we see others working? And then we got a question that was kind of related, which is like with all the AI engines that are being used at different companies, how is that actually playing out in the benefit selection space? And what do we see both personally and out in the markets?
Amy Clempe: Okay, yep, I'll take a stab at that. So from a client perspective, they're really doing a lot of things. We certainly have some clients that are actively building out their own chatbots and agentic experiences. But I'd say that more of our clients are looking to us to provide those experiences for their employees. We actually just finished a pilot for two very large employers It was a pilot of our new benefits enrollment assistant. It was received really well. We had over 19,000 users who asked over 50,000 questions. The AI actually responded. Well, I should say there was an AI generated response to more than half of those questions, which is fantastic. And then what that means is for the other 45% that AI didn't answer, we resorted to the more standard Q&A type of programming and training that we taught the bots. But AI did a really good job in answering those questions. And participants reported a really high rate of confidence in the accuracy of those results. Now, that said, you were talking about data privacy and governance, and those concerns are very real. We've created committees, formal guidelines, standards that we have to follow as an organization for how we are using AI ethically and responsibly. And we're starting to see clients get into setting up similar processes. And they're also starting to think about how to test, how they will in turn test their providers and their vendors to make sure that the AI that they're providing is also accurate and ethical and so on. So they're thinking about how are they going to audit it? How are they going to check to make sure that AI is doing the things that it should do? So I guess I will just cap it off by saying I would certainly say to employees, use the AI, but use it mindfully. So if something doesn't sound right, check the facts. But I mean, actually, I'm very encouraged by the early usage that we're seeing out there.
Lane Thomas Conway: Yeah, I think it is, right? Like, as we're all navigating AI in our personal lives and professional lives and across the spectrum, right? That is that kind of, you know, be open, but, you know, verify. I do think, right, the more that we see companies like ours, but, you know, across the benefits and HR spectrum, as they're integrating AI into their platforms and tools, I actually think it's a win for employees because, you know, These HR and benefit companies are taking such care and making sure that the AI is accurate and is secure versus typing it into a chat GPT about what healthcare decision you should make. That one, right, is maybe a little, you have to take that with a little bit more caution than if you're doing it with kind of a verified tool. So I do think, right, as we see the advances, it actually makes for better outcomes for employees.
Amy Clempe: I fully agree with that.
Lane Thomas Conway: Yeah, I'm going to take a question that came in around kind of the effectiveness of communication. So again, I hinted at I, you know, spent a good 25 years of my career really focused on employee communication, employee engagement. So this one is near and dear to me. So Obviously, we touched on a number of things around making sure that communication is hitting the mark, that we're sending the right amount, that we're making it effective and relevant. And measuring communication is a little bit different than measuring enrollment migration, because it's a little bit more art than science. But I think there are things you can be doing in terms of you know, short surveys, building in communication questions to any kind of engagement surveys that you're doing so that you are getting kind of good data around how people are feeling about it. Certainly, right, a lot of our modern digital communication that we're using both kind of broad communication as well as personalized messaging that's coming out around health and wealth and well-being, right? You can have a lot of data and really digging into that data to see, you know, open rates and engagement rates and how people are interacting with it. Are they clicking through? Are they you know, getting to the right things, right? Making sure you're availing yourself of all of that digital data that is available. And then I think three is kind of using communication effectiveness as an indicator around some of the utilization of your programs, right? So while I don't know that, you know, if I did a big campaign around a new parental and caregiver support resources, And I may not be able to, and I sent out, say, a multimedia approach with, you know, a postcard to home and some digital stuff as well as some things on my intranet, right? And I'm not going to be able to know if somebody read the postcard or they threw it in the trash. But, right, seeing the utilization of those programs, seeing the uptick, using kind of your correlated or related data is very important, right, to saying how is that, how effective is it, right? So, again... you're never going to get, you're never going to know that somebody read my email all the way through. But things like open rates and click-through rates, you know, you definitely want to be using all that data and kind of evaluating it. All right. Last question here, I think, as we kind of near the end of our time together is we talked a lot about some data. We talked about the fully supported. We talked about an integrated experience. You know, Amy, in your role, in really looking at kind of the products and the platform and the ecosystem out there. Tell us just a little bit more about that integrated experience and what we should all be keeping in mind.
Amy Clempe: Yeah, we are hyper-focused on that one-stop shop experience where there's a single website or the single app that connects everything together seamlessly and that it remembers information so that as participants are going from One, you know, support service to the other, that the information is actually housed centrally so that employees are not having to repeat themselves. Like, you know, the next point in the process is they're talking to somebody. For example, perhaps they're talking to a health pro counselor. You know, you want that counselor to know that, gee, that employee already availed themselves of the, you know, second surgical opinion benefit, right? Or they might know, like, oh, you know, geez, this person, indicates that they have back problems. So, hey, let's make sure they're aware of the musculoskeletal programs that are out there. So we're absolutely focused on that holistic experience and making sure, like do some of the thinking for people so that we're pointing them to all of the support resources so that they don't have to go and find them for themselves. Great.
: Great. All right.
Lane Thomas Conway: Well, I think we're nearing and near enough the top of the hour that we'll give everybody at least a minute back in their day to before they transition to what I'm sure is everyone's next phone call. But, you know, on behalf of Amy and I, we have been so happy to spend the last hour with with all of you. We appreciate the questions, appreciate the attention. And hopefully you've unlocked a few keys to take away as you're kind of strategizing for 2026 about your health and well-being today. programs and strategy for your employees. So again, thank you so much. And I'm going to turn it back over to HRE to kind of wrap us up.
: Thank you all so much for attending today's event. You may disconnect and have a wonderful rest of your day.
