To put together a competitive benefits package that helps you attract and retain top talent, you must go beyond salary and retirement benefits.
After all, employees aren’t just looking for a job that can pay the bills. People want to work for a company that complements their lifestyle and future goals, such as having families.
So, what are the top benefits categories employees want? According to SHRM’s 2022 Employee Benefits Survey, these are the top benefits categories that respondents listed as “Very” or “Extremely Important”:
Health-related and family benefits ranked higher than career development, technology, education, and non-retirement financial benefits.
That’s why today, a surefire way to attract top talent is by expanding your view of health and family benefits to include fertility benefits for employees. Companies like Amazon, Meta, and Google are making headlines for covering services such as IVF and egg-freezing.
The good news? Family building and fertility care benefits aren’t just for Silicon Valley giants.
Let’s take a closer look at what it takes to offer fertility benefits and how you can structure a program that works for your business and employees.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
What Is Fertility Care?
What Employees Think About Fertility Care Benefits
Why Businesses Should Consider Fertility Care Benefits
What’s Included in Fertility Care Benefits
The Cost of Providing Fertility Care for Employees
Structuring Fertility Care Benefits
How To Provide Fertility Care Benefits
Final Thoughts: Should You Offer Fertility Care Benefits for Employees?
Fertility care encompasses a range of procedures aimed to help individuals or couples become pregnant. The three main types of fertility care include medicine, surgical treatment, and assisted contraception.
In addition to infertility treatments, fertility services can include resources such as education, fertility testing and diagnostics, and family planning counseling.
A survey by Resolve found that 77% of employees would stay at a company if offered fertility benefits and 88% would consider changing jobs to access fertility benefits.
What’s behind the shift?
Nowadays, employees don’t want to choose between their career goals and dream life. People are looking for employers who understand that there’s more to a person’s life than their job.
And while the idea of fertility care as an employee benefit may seem new, it’s been a long-time coming. Moreso when you consider how family structures and gender roles have shifted over time.
Here are a few examples of the shifts driving the significant increase in demand for family benefits and fertility care:
Having a new idea and getting your business off the ground are impressive feats. But once you’re up and running, longevity is the next hurdle.
Is your business more than just a flash in the pan?
You need the right people to grow your business, and offering fertility care is an excellent way to take care of your employees and position yourself as a place where people want to work.
According to Resolve’s 2021 Fertility Survey Report, businesses report several positive outcomes as a result of offering fertility coverage, including:
Providing insurance coverage that includes fertility benefits is an excellent option for companies that want to attract talented people who will stick around.
Let’s face it.
There are two kinds of employers in our world: those that keep their employees and others that end up as resume stepping stones.
The key to acquiring and retaining talent lies in treating your employees like humans and using tools, like your benefits, to support them in areas of their life beyond work.
Fertility care can look different in every company. Let’s take a closer look at the three primary types of fertility treatments to better understand what to consider covering.
Fertility medications can help stimulate ovulation in women or rebalance male hormones to improve the chances of conceiving.
Examples of fertility medications include Clomifene, Metformin, and Gonadotrophins.
Surgical procedures are used to treat infertility that comes from anatomical issues. Common infertility surgeries include:
Lastly, we have assisted conception procedures that can help individuals and couples get pregnant.
These include:
Your fertility benefits don’t have to be limited to infertility treatments. You can create a plan that takes a more well-rounded approach to family-building benefits.
Specifically, you can provide resources included in fertility care management programs, such as fertility testing, counseling, and education.
You can also include options that cater more to same-sex couples or individuals seeking to be single parents, such as surrogacy and adoption benefits.
At this point, you may be thinking, “Fertility benefits sound great for large companies, but are they affordable for me?”
The answer is yes.
The Resolve report we mentioned earlier backs that up, showing that 97% of employers said that covering infertility benefits did not result in a significant cost increase. And that number includes people who provide access to more expensive assisted reproductive technology procedures such as IVF coverage.
But let’s take a look at fertility and family-building benefits relative to the costs of employee turnover.
Experts estimate that employee turnover costs range from 33% to 200% of an employee’s salary. Much of those costs come from knowledge and productivity loss.
To put it into perspective, let’s say you have 50 employees and an average salary of $75,000 per year. If you have a 30% attrition rate, you’re looking at annual replacement costs ranging from $371,000 to $2.25 million.
When you consider that 77% of employees would stay at a company if it offered fertility benefits, you have a compelling case.
When you offer fertility care benefits for employees, the plans are usually structured to keep healthcare costs manageable.
At Pebble, we use a $20,000 lifetime account that employees can draw down to cover fertility treatments.
However, there are several types of structures you can use. Here are some of the more common ones:
If you’re interested in exploring a startup healthcare plan that includes fertility benefits, you can get in touch with us for a quote.
If you are on board with fertility care benefits, your first step is getting in touch with your current healthcare plan provider. They can tell you if your insurance plan covers fertility benefits and what limits apply.
If you don’t have benefits already, your current provider can discuss whether or not they have add-on services for fertility and family building.
You can also look at specialty vendors that work with healthcare providers to include add-on fertility care.
No matter which one you choose, you want to ensure that your existing and potential employees know about your fertility benefit plans.
We recommend:
Let’s not pretend that it was only the pandemic that resulted in millions of employees leaving their jobs during the Great Resignation. Many of us have had to reprioritize our lives, and businesses of all sizes felt it.
Even as workplaces begin to find their way to a new normal, one thing is clear. Retention will be a challenge for employers.
Fertility benefits are an excellent way to create competitive benefits plans that help you find and keep the best talent.
If you’re a growing startup, you need a partner that’s agile like you and still offers access to plans from the best insurance companies.
At Pebble Health, we offer health insurance plans that are optimized to reduce costs and grow with you. Get in touch to see how you can launch your health benefits fast.
