DEI Starts With Benefits That Benefit Everyone

Helping people balance their personal and professional lives

Building a diverse workforce has been talked about since the mid-1960s, but in the last three years, it has become a core element of recruitment and retention strategies for more than 80% of American companies. It’s not just lip service, either: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is baked into operations and planning activities at the highest levels, and HR leaders are constantly looking for new ways to implement policies that will transform their organizations and build teams that reflect society as a whole. And one of the key ways to do this is with benefits that help people balance their personal and professional lives.

As every human resources and benefits professional knows, having a great package in addition to a competitive salary can be the driving factor in a prospect deciding to take a particular job. That’s why top companies openly tout perks such as on-site laundry, gym memberships, and free meals. And while those things can be attractive for employees, there is a whole other category of “invisible” benefits that can be even more powerful when it comes to attracting and keeping amazing employees.

This is where fertility benefits can play a critical role in DEI strategies, because the most common beneficiaries are women, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities – all of whom are underrepresented in many industries. Surprisingly, fertility treatments are often not covered in basic health plans. There are many reasons for this, but the end result is that people who want to form a family often find themselves having to pay tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket fees. This is an incredible financial hardship, and people who don’t have access to these services will often look for employment at organizations that offer these kinds of benefits.

So, what does this have to do with DEI? In a word, everything. For starters, more than 75% of people who require fertility treatments (including IVF and egg freezing) are women between the ages of 35 and 45: a demographic that is notoriously underrepresented in fields such as technology and financial services. Organizations in these industries have traditionally struggled to achieve gender equity, so offering benefits that help women can be a powerful tool in recruitment and retention. It is also a great way to keep and attract people in same-sex relationships who need assistance with everything from egg donation to surrogacy.

There is no single magic bullet that is going to make an organization instantly attractive to all candidates, but people who are in the job market know which companies have good reputations when it comes to supporting their team members. If an employer is known for being a supporter of diversity, and backs it up with policies and benefits that reflect their values, candidates will gravitate toward that company. And for many people in overlooked communities, this can be the tipping point that influences where they want to build their careers.