As a benefits manager, you spend a lot of time researching various benefits, comparing vendors, weighing the pros and cons, and doing your best to find benefits that support the broadest number of your employees and their individual needs.

73% of all employees have some type of current caregiving responsibility—and those who don’t have now may have one soon (HBR).

When it comes to family benefits, those that support the widest range of employees will include:
 

• Fertility, surrogacy, adoption, and other family planning benefits
• Pregnancy and birthing benefits
• Parenting benefits through infancy, toddlerdom, childhood, and the teenage years
• Caregiving benefits to support adults with unique needs and aging relatives     
• Self-care support for the parent or caregiver themselves

In today’s environment, however, it’s more important than ever to ensure that the family benefits you select—however impactful—ultimately support the company’s bottom line. And your CFO and CEO, especially, will be inquiring as to how, exactly, these benefits will do that.

Here are some talking points to prepare you for a discussion with your CFO or CEO as to why they should considering add parenting and caregiving benefits to your organization:

Family Benefits Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover

Offering fertility, parenting, and caregiving benefits can help improve employee retention rates by providing better work-life balance for employees, preventing burnout and caring for caregivers’ mental health, and outsourcing the support needed to those equipped with the skills to handle it. It costs an average of 33% of an employee’s salary to replace an employee (EBN).

Family Benefits Can Help Attract Top Talent

Companies that offer family benefits are more attractive to top talent who prioritize work-life balance and care for their families. Family-friendly benefits improve recruitment success and the ability to obtain higher quality candidates by 60.1%; increase the diversity of teams by 50.1%; and add more women in high levels of leadership by 47.2%. (UWLP).

Family Benefits Contribute to a Positive and Forward-Thinking Company Culture

Providing family, parenting, and caregiving benefits shows employees that the company cares about their well-being and values them beyond just their work. Almost eight in 10 employers said that family-friendly benefits would be important to their talent strategy in the next three years to a great or very great extent (Willis Towers Watson).

Family Benefits Can Help Reduce Absenteeism

Employees are better equipped to manage personal obligations, leading to fewer missed work days due to caregiving responsibilities. $44B annually is lost due to care-related absenteeism (BlueCross BlueShield).

Family Benefits Can Help Increase Productivity

By alleviating the burden of caregiving responsibilities, employees can focus on their work, leading to increased productivity. Among all working parents with children under age 18, more than half (56%) say it is difficult for them to balance the responsibilities of their job with the responsibilities of their family (Pew Research Center). With Cleo support, 80% of Cleo members agree that Cleo, in the past year, saved them time by providing the resources, answers or help needed as a working parent and/or caregiver.

Family Benefits Can Help Save on Hard Costs

Family benefits across the support spectrum can help alleviate hard costs for medical care, such as unnecessary costly birthing procedures, supporting neurodivergent children, or avoiding complications from a lack of mental health support. Every dollar spent toward mental health treatment leads to a return of $4 in improved health and productivity (WHO), and 78% of participants in Cleo’s Mental Health Program report an overall improvement (Cleo).

Family Benefits Can Give Us a Competitive Advantage

Companies that offer family, parenting, and caregiving benefits gain a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining top talent, improving productivity, and enhancing their public image. Nearly 80% of responding employers agree that expanding caregiving benefits could improve efforts to attract and retain employees. Zero percent of respondents said caregiving benefits have absolutely no bearing on these efforts (EBN).

Family Benefits Can Provide the Access Point to Your Other Benefits

Family health touches every area of a person's life. A benefit focused on supporting parenting and caregiving will work to understand the root causes of stress and burden and empower employees to leverage other benefits you may offer, such as mental health, financial and legal support, childcare, and health plans — especially in the case of more complicated situations such as the Sandwich Generation. More than one in ten U.S. parents are also caring for an adult (Pew Research Center).

Family Benefits Can Help Prepare Us for the Future

As the population continues to age and live longer, there will be even more caregivers as part of your employee population than there are currently. By 2060, there will be 95 million Americans age 65 and older—and more employees taking on caregiver roles (BenefitsPro).

You know your executive team best, and what matters to them and your company the most. The bottom line is that waiting to invest in family benefits can hurt your company’s bottom line.

Family benefits that support all employees, from those starting a family to new parents to parents of older children to adult caregivers, provide your employees with their best chance to succeed both at home and at work.
 

Author Bio

Madhavi Vemireddy, MD is Cleo’s CEO and has over 20 years of experience in advanced clinical analytics, population health programs, and digital health products. Previously, Madhavi was co-founder and COO of CareTribe, and applied her population health experience and her personal journey of caregiving for her eldest son to support family caregivers. Madhavi has also led the development of evidence-based analytics, population health programs and digital platforms for two CVS Health companies.

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