From AI integration to global geopolitical conflicts, uncertainty is clouding the American workplace today—and it’s having a marked impact on how both employees and employers are thinking about wellbeing.
Specifically, a new report from MetLife finds that the American workforce is significantly concerned about their financial picture, with financial health recently reaching pandemic-era lows, according to the report. In addition, financial confidence has reached a low not seen in 14 years. However, employees are learning to adapt to uncertainty, researchers say, by “prioritizing security and stability over growth and innovative thinking.” It’s a strategy that may work in the short term but is eroding long-term growth and transforming the employee-employer relationship.
To that end, MetLife CHRO Shurawl Sibblies writes in the report that employers have an opportunity to bring a level of measured control to their employees’ lives, particularly around the areas about which they most care.
“Uncertainty feels more manageable when the things we can control are cared for; when people are equipped with the skills to make a difference, the confidence to try something new and a clear connection between our work and a broader purpose,” she says.
The report recommends that employers can support their workforce through today’s challenges in a way that prepares them for tomorrow’s challenges with a three-pronged approach, which it labels the “Success Reset.” There are three core tenets HR should focus on in this strategy:
Connection: When employees feel connected to their work, their colleagues and their organization as a whole, individual and business outcomes improve—productivity increases, engagement jumps and holistic employee health improves, MetLife researchers say. “Connection is not only about belonging at work,” they caution, “but also about seeing the impact of oneʼs work and having opportunities to develop new skills.”
Human skills: To that end, HR should proactively ensure employees aren’t losing the opportunity to flex their “distinctly human capabilities,” like problem-solving and creativity, as they increasingly leverage AI and automation. Create “clear pathways,” MetLife says, that help employees develop these skills, rewarding them for such work.
Modern benefits: The third aspect of the Success Reset concerns transforming both benefits design and delivery. Benefits offerings need to be relevant and accessible, while communicated clearly. When employees understand their benefits, they’re more likely to utilize them, which can drive better connection and improve health and performance outcomes.
Driving benefits design success at MetLife
In a recent interview with HR Executive, Sibblies says these three principles can help HR “solve short-term challenges and enable long-term growth.”
“People are looking for connection, they want to develop new skills and they want their benefits to be more connected to those important life moments,” she says.
As one of the largest insurance providers, serving more than 100 million customers, and employing 46,000, MetLife’s stature in the benefits industry drives its HR and benefits teams to keep “raising the bar” on modernizing benefits for its own workforce, Sibblies says.
“It’s a tremendous responsibility,” she adds, “but it all goes back to leading with trust: We have to design our benefits experience so that it’s reliable, supportive for people in times of change, and we have to show up for them in moments that matter.”
Staying attuned to the diversity of your workforce—and their evolving benefits needs—is critical to creating the offerings that have the most impact, she says.
Employees need “confidence,” that, no matter their life stage or unique circumstances, they can turn to the organization’s benefits experience for support.
“They need a variety of options, and they need choice,” she says, including structures that need to be informed by HR listening to employees and, in turn, clearly communicating. “They need clarity so that they have confidence.”
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