COVID-19 and reproductive well being entry have been matters pervasive on social media, in Slack channels and within the boardroom through the previous 12 months.
These well being sizzling matters formed employers’ advantages methods all through 2022, specialists stated in a Dec. 8 Mercer webinar. Waiting for 2023, worker-informed advantages will proceed to prevail, they stated.
COVID-19 tendencies
Non-compulsory Caption
In a Q3 survey on the advantages panorama, employers advised Mercer that COVID-19 has affected enterprise operations: 34% stated their group has skilled COVID-related absences, as a consequence of acute sickness, isolation or quarantine. Mercer surveyed respondents representing 701 organizations — with about half of respondents working at medium-sized firms (500 to 4,999 employees) and a fifth working at large-sized firms (5,000 to 19,999 staff).
Lengthy COVID additionally was a theme all through the examine. Mercer researchers famous a Scottish examine suggesting 6% of individuals don’t recuperate from COVID after 6 to 18 months, and 42% solely partially recovered. Within the Mercer survey, 12% of respondents reported productiveness losses associated to lengthy COVID and 14% reported leaves associated to lengthy COVID.
Trying on the knowledge, it’s onerous to say simply how companies dealt with these COVID-19 tendencies. Employers are granting leaves and providing lodging. On the time of the survey, nonetheless, 51% of respondents stated their firm doesn’t require staff to be vaccinated to work on-site. One other 15% stated they as soon as required staff to be vaccinated, however dropped their mandate.
Employers can prep for the projected “winter surge” of COVID-19 by providing extra, coronavirus-specific PTO, examine authors stated. The report demonstrated a precedent for this, with greater than half of employers providing some type of COVID-19 depart.
Reproductive well being tendencies
Non-compulsory Caption
Picture by Anna Shvets from Pexels
Working mother and father’ want for better assist has lengthy been there, with moms, “particularly, sounding the alarm,” in keeping with two Mercer senior associates of whole well being administration, Brittany Bono and Corina Leu.
“Nonetheless, parental assist advantages have been considered as extra of a perk supplied by modern employers previous to 2020, and assist targeted closely on the childcare area,” Bono and Leu advised HR Dive by way of electronic mail. “When the COVID-19 pandemic made the problem of childcare not possible to disregard by ‘pushing’ practically 4 million ladies from the workforce, it appeared to create an avenue for employers to concentrate on broader household wants, as effectively, to incorporate areas like parental teaching and caregiver assist for each mother and father and folks caring for growing old family members.”
The Nice Resignation subsequently put extra stress on employers to draw and retain expertise, and household advantages turned a kind of perks, the Mercer specialists added — acknowledging the significance of the Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group determination in rekindling the well being care advantages dialog.
All through summer time 2022, HR leads noticed an inflow of Fortune 500 firms proudly asserting their assist for staff touring out of state for abortions. As this information caught hearth, questions concerning how firms may fund out-of-state medical journey — for abortions but in addition for different procedures, equivalent to gender-affirming surgical procedures — arose.
And regardless of this summer time’s buzz, Mercer knowledge recommended that about half of employers won’t offer medical journey companies. In the meantime, greater than half stated particularly they’re not providing abortion journey companies. (The latter stat additionally contains firms that don’t have staff in abortion-restricted states.)
Firms that do cowl abortion journey, notably, principally accomplish that with out restrictions. About one-third solely cowl abortions which are therapeutic or medically needed.
It seems these advantages largely cropped up in response to the Dobbs determination: 36% stated they applied or expanded journey advantages in response to worker expectations and requests, with 46% saying they did so to “stay an employer of selection.” Firms and HR groups seeking to appeal to and retain expertise can proceed maintaining in thoughts which advantages preserve them as an employer of selection.
