If you want to keep up with the recruiting Joneses, having stellar compensation packages is more important than ever. 35% of organizations increased their benefits offerings over the past 12 months, citing employee retention (72%) and recruiting (58%) as the most popular reasons. On the other end of the spectrum, only 5% of organizations decreased their benefits packages over the past year, with cost (75%) as the primary driver for the change.

Of course, you would give your employees everything they wanted, and more, if it were feasible. Health care spending has increased by 4.3% since 2015, which might not sound like much, but that actually represents a $445 increase per person per year. The average employee now costs over $10,000 annually to cover. Employers and employees are feeling the squeeze, so how can you increase your offerings while still keeping the finance department happy?

Health plan diversification is key to developing a balanced and affordable health plan portfolio.

PPO plans continue to be the most popular option (84%), while CDHPs (40%) have surpassed HMOs (35%) as the second most popular plan choice. CDHPs increased 73% since last year and, unsurprisingly, so did the use of benefits savings accounts like HSAs and FSAs.

Support New Parents

Though the United States doesn’t have a great track record of supporting new parents compared to the rest of the world, this trend is slowly but surely beginning to shift. The number of organizations offering paid maternity leave has increased 35% over the past two years while the number of companies offering paid paternity leave is up 29% over the same time period. Paid leave for fostering, adoption and surrogacy is also on the rise. Providing paid leave for new parents will not only help increase organizational commitment and employee engagement but also lower the risk of maternal depression and reduce health care costs long-term by supporting healthy infants at home. Learn more about the top employee benefits for parents!