Key takeaways — Employee Benefits Statistics
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Employers project a 10% rise in health care costs, the steepest increase in recent years. At the same time, 50% of employees avoid seeking medical care because of out-of-pocket costs — meaning cost-shifting strategies defer the problem rather than solve it.
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While 77% of employees plan to stay with their employer, 56% are doing so out of necessity, not genuine commitment. Only 18% say they are staying because they truly want to — a fragile retention picture hiding behind stable quit rates.
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92% of employees say mental health benefits are important for a positive workplace culture — nearly on par with health insurance itself. Yet only 53% know how to access mental health care through their employer, and 48% worry they would be judged for using it.
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Financial stress costs U.S. employers over $1.1 trillion annually in lost productivity. Employees today are 12 percentage points less likely to feel in control of their finances than a decade ago, and 57% say finances are the top source of stress in their lives.
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60% of remote-capable employees prefer hybrid work, and 46% say they would be unlikely to stay if their employer eliminated flexibility. Workers value hybrid arrangements at roughly the equivalent of an 8% salary increase.
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75% of voluntary turnover is preventable, yet replacing a single employee still costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary. U.S. businesses lose roughly $1 trillion per year to departures that better management, benefits, and culture could have stopped.
For most workers today, the quality of their benefits package is one of the main reasons they stay, and one of the first things they look at when thinking about leaving.
The numbers tell a clear story. Healthcare costs for employers are projected to jump 10% in 2026. Half of all employees avoid going to the doctor because of out-of-pocket costs. Over half the workforce is staying in their current job not out of loyalty, but because the job market feels too risky right now.
And three in ten workers say their senior leaders do not take mental health seriously, which quietly undermines every dollar spent on wellbeing.
Employers are trying to manage rising costs without cutting coverage people depend on. Employees are dealing with financial stress, health concerns, and benefits they often do not fully understand or use. Both sides are under pressure, and that tension is showing up in retention data, engagement scores, and exit interviews.
This article covers the most important employee benefits statistics across seven areas: health coverage and cost trends, the retention reality employers are facing, wellbeing and mental health, financial wellness, workplace flexibility, onboarding and engagement, and the true cost of turnover.
Health Coverage and Rising Cost Trends
Health coverage sits at the centre of every employee benefits conversation, and the conversation is harder than it has been in years.
Costs are climbing steeply, plan design decisions are getting more difficult, and the gap between what employers can afford to offer and what employees need from their coverage is widening. These seven statistics explain where things stand right now.
1. Nearly All U.S. Employers Offer Some Form of Health Coverage (97%)
Close to 97% of U.S. employers report offering some form of health coverage to their workforce, according to SHRM’s annual benefits benchmarking data. On the surface that sounds like a problem solved. It is not.
What that number does not capture is the enormous variation in what “health coverage” actually means from one employer to the next. Plan generosity, network quality, behavioral health access, out-of-pocket limits, and how well benefits are explained at enrollment all differ widely. Two companies can both say they offer health insurance and deliver completely different experiences to their employees.
For HR leaders, the question is no longer whether you offer health coverage. It is whether the coverage you offer is actually useful for the people who depend on it.
Source: SHRM, Employee Benefits Survey
2. Employers Are Projecting a 10% Jump in Health Care Costs for 2026
Employers are projecting health care costs to rise by 10% in 2026, according to research from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), which surveyed 31,000 employer members. That is up from the 8% rise employers had projected for 2025, and a significant step up from the 5.8% Mercer had forecast the year before.
The increase is being driven by several factors at once: rising pharmaceutical prices, the rapid expansion of GLP-1 drug coverage, increased utilization of specialty care, and a wave of chronic conditions that were left unmanaged during the pandemic years and are now surfacing in claims data.
A 10% cost projection changes the math on benefit budgeting considerably. It puts pressure on premium structures, cost-sharing design, and how much room HR teams have left to expand other parts of the benefits package without exceeding their total rewards budget.
Health care cost trends — what employers are projecting
- On target
- Exceeded forecast
- Highest projected yet
3. 51% of Large Employers Plan to Shift More Health Costs to Employees in 2026
As health budgets tighten, more employers are adjusting their plan design in ways that move costs toward employees. Mercer found that 51% of large employers, defined as organizations with 500 or more employees, said they are likely or very likely to make plan changes in 2026 that shift more of the financial burden onto workers. That is up from 45% who said the same heading into 2025.
The tools employers are reaching for include higher deductibles, increased out-of-pocket maximums, tighter prior authorization requirements, and narrower provider networks.
These moves reduce employer cost exposure, but they do not make the cost disappear. They transfer it to employees, most often at the point when someone actually needs care.
That matters for retention. Rising out-of-pocket costs are consistently cited among the top reasons employees consider changing jobs, and that dynamic does not show up in the benefits budget model until it starts showing up in turnover data.
Source: SHRM
4. Employees Miss 6.1 Days Per Year Due to Health Issues, and Half Avoid Care Because of Cost
MetLife’s 2026 U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study, which surveyed 2,480 HR leaders and 2,541 full-time employees in October 2025, found that employees miss an average of 6.1 workdays per year because of health-related issues.
At the same time, 50% of employees say they regularly avoid seeking medical care because of what it costs them out of pocket.
Those two findings are connected. When employees delay or skip care because of cost, minor health issues become bigger ones. The same MetLife research found that employees who are in good health are 25% more productive and loyal than their less healthy peers, and they take 10% fewer sick days.
The cost of underinvesting in affordable health access does not stay off the books. It surfaces later as absenteeism, presenteeism, and eventually attrition.
Source: MetLife, 2026 U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study
5. Health Care FSAs Are Declining, Now Offered by Only 60% of Employers
Health care flexible spending accounts are becoming less common. SHRM’s 2025 Employee Benefits Survey shows that FSAs are now offered by approximately 60% of employers, down from 63% in 2024 and close to 68% in 2021.
Dependent-care FSAs have declined further still, dropping to 54%, which represents an 11-point fall over just four years.
The trend reflects a broader shift toward account structures with more flexibility. Health savings accounts, which allow funds to roll over from year to year and are owned by the employee rather than tied to a specific employer, have been gaining ground as employers steer workers toward options that offer more long-term value.
The “use it or lose it” design of FSAs has always created friction, and as HSA-eligible high-deductible plans have become more common, FSAs have gradually become the secondary option for many plan designs.
The FSA decline — how employer benefit account offerings have shifted since 2021
- Stable / baseline
- Notable decline
- Significant drop
6. GLP-1 Drug Coverage Is Reshaping Employer Health Plan Design
GLP-1 medications, originally developed for type 2 diabetes and now widely prescribed for weight loss, have become one of the most consequential and contested items in employer health plan design. Coverage has been expanding steadily, particularly among larger employers, and the cost pressure they create is a meaningful contributor to the double-digit health cost projections for 2026.
At approximately $1,000 per patient per month, these drugs represent a significant claims exposure. Mercer found that 77% of employers say managing GLP-1 costs is extremely or very important to their 2026 benefits strategy.
Some employers who added coverage in recent years are now revisiting whether they can sustain it. Others are adding clinical criteria and prior authorization requirements to manage utilization without removing access altogether.
There is no simple answer here. Restricting access raises legitimate concerns about health equity and clinical outcomes. Open-ended coverage without utilization guardrails can destabilize plan economics quickly. Most employers are somewhere in between, trying to balance employee health needs with cost sustainability.
Source: SHRM
7. 73% of Employers Say Non-Medical Benefits Are the Most Cost-Effective Way to Support Employee Wellbeing
Not every benefits dollar needs to go into the medical plan. MetLife’s 2026 research found that 73% of employers identify non-medical benefits as the most cost-effective mechanism for supporting employee wellbeing. And 83% of those employers reported lower medical costs as a direct result of investing in supplementary offerings.
Voluntary and supplemental benefits, including dental, vision, legal services, accident insurance, critical illness coverage, and financial wellness tools, give employees meaningful coverage for costs their primary medical plan does not reach.
When these benefits are designed well and communicated clearly, they reduce the financial fragility that drives unplanned absences, disengagement, and eventually turnover. For HR teams working with tight budgets in 2026, this is where some of the most practical spending decisions are being made.
Source: MetLife, U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study
The Retention Reality: What the Data Is Actually Telling Employers
On paper, retention looks relatively stable right now. Voluntary turnover has slowed compared to the peak years of the Great Resignation, and many HR teams have taken that as a sign that things have settled down. The data tells a more complicated story.
A large portion of the workforce is staying put not because they are happy, engaged, or invested in where they work, but because they feel they have no better option.
That distinction matters enormously for how employers should think about their benefits strategy, their engagement programs, and their risk exposure when the job market eventually opens up again.
8. 77% of Employees Plan to Stay with Their Employer, But 56% Are Staying Out of Necessity
MetLife’s 2026 U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study, published in February 2026, found that 77% of employees say they intend to remain with their current employer. That number looks encouraging until you look at why they are staying.
Of those planning to stay, 56% said they are doing so out of necessity rather than genuine commitment to the organisation. The job market feels too uncertain, the cost of switching too high, or their financial situation too fragile to take the risk of leaving. MetLife researchers described this pattern as “job hugging,” where employees hold on to their current role not because it is working for them, but because letting go feels too risky.
This is not a healthy retention picture. It looks stable from the outside, but underneath there is a workforce that is disengaged, financially stressed, and waiting for conditions to improve before making a move.
Source: MetLife
9. Only 18% of Employees Are Staying Because They Actually Want To
The flip side of that 56% figure is equally striking. According to the same MetLife 2026 research, only 18% of employees say their primary reason for staying is that they genuinely want to be there. That means for every five workers planning to stay with their employer this year, fewer than one is doing so out of authentic loyalty or satisfaction.
That has direct implications for how employers interpret their retention numbers. Low turnover in a cautious job market is not the same thing as a loyal, committed workforce. The moment conditions shift and employees feel safer making a move, organisations that have been coasting on necessity-driven retention are going to feel it quickly.
Benefits play a direct role here. Employees who feel genuinely supported by their benefits package are far more likely to stay for the right reasons. Those who feel their benefits are inadequate, hard to access, or poorly communicated are staying in spite of that, not because of it.
The retention reality — why employees are staying matters as much as whether they stay
Low quit rates look reassuring on a dashboard. But the data behind them tells a very different story. Most employees who say they plan to stay are doing so because leaving feels too risky — not because they feel genuinely committed to where they work.
77%
Plan to stay
of employees say they intend to remain with their current employer
MetLife 2026 EBTS
56%
Staying out of necessity
are doing so because leaving feels too risky, not out of genuine commitment
MetLife 2026 EBTS
18%
Staying because they want to
only 18% say their primary reason for staying is that they genuinely want to be there
MetLife 2026 EBTS
50%
Engagement among necessity stayers
employees staying out of necessity are only half as likely to be actively engaged in their work
MetLife 2026 EBTS
What this means for employers
- Employee financial confidence has fallen to its lowest level since 2012 — the primary reason most workers feel unable to take the risk of leaving
- Employees staying out of necessity are 54% less likely to be holistically healthy, creating a compounding drag on productivity and team culture
- 60% of employees say they would leave for better health insurance and 59% for a stronger retirement plan — the moment the job market opens up, the departure risk becomes real
Necessity-driven retention has a short shelf life. Organisations coasting on stable quit rates without investing in genuine commitment are building a retention risk they cannot yet see on a dashboard — but will feel sharply when conditions shift.
10. Employees Staying Out of Necessity Are Only Half as Likely to Be Actively Engage
There is a measurable performance cost attached to necessity-driven retention. MetLife’s 2026 data found that employees who are staying primarily because they feel they have no better option are only 50% likely to be actively engaged in their work.
They are also 54% less likely to be holistically healthy compared to employees who are staying out of genuine commitment.
That combination, low engagement and poor health, creates a compounding drag on productivity, team culture, and overall workplace energy that does not show up in headcount numbers but shows up everywhere else. An organisation full of people going through the motions is not in a strong position, regardless of how low its attrition rate looks on a dashboard.
For HR leaders, the practical question is whether your current benefits package is doing anything to move people from the necessity column into the commitment column.
Benefits that reduce financial stress, support physical and mental health, and make employees feel genuinely valued by their employer are the ones most likely to do that.
Spending is up — but employee health and engagement scores have barely moved
- Spending more on the same benefits does not move the needle if those benefits are hard to access, poorly communicated, or not aligned with what employees actually need
- Financial stress is undermining everything else — 83% of employees cite rising costs as their top stressor, reducing their ability to engage with even well-designed benefit programs
- Benefits literacy is the missing lever — employees who understand and can use their benefits report significantly higher wellbeing and job stability than those who cannot
11. Employee Financial Confidence Has Fallen to Its Lowest Level Since 2012
The reason so many employees are staying put out of necessity rather than choice is at least partly explained by how they feel about their financial situation.
Research found that employee financial confidence has dropped to its lowest point since 2012, with 83% of employees citing rising living expenses and medical costs as their top sources of stress, and 77% saying economic uncertainty is a major ongoing concern.
When people feel financially vulnerable, they become more risk-averse in every direction, including decisions about changing jobs. That makes them appear more loyal than they actually are, and it makes the eventual departure, when it comes, harder to predict and manage.
It also means that benefits with a direct financial impact, such as better health coverage, employer HSA contributions, student loan assistance, emergency savings programs, and financial planning support, carry more weight with employees right now than they have in over a decade.
This is not the time for employers to be pulling back on financial wellbeing benefits.
12. 60% of Employees Would Leave for Better Health Insurance, 59% for a Stronger Retirement Plan
Despite the job-hugging dynamic holding many workers in place right now, employees are clear about what would make them move. Research from the Employee Financial Wellness Report found that 60% of employees say they would leave their current job for an employer offering better health insurance, and 59% say they would do the same for a stronger retirement plan or a more generous employer match.
Beyond those two core benefits, 57% say more paid time off or greater schedule flexibility would prompt them to leave, and 48% say they would switch employers for more comprehensive wellness perks.
These are not fringe preferences. They are the most foundational parts of a total rewards package, and for a majority of the workforce, their current employer is not clearing the bar.
That gap is the retention risk hiding beneath today’s relatively stable turnover numbers. When the job market loosens up, employers who have not invested in competitive benefits are going to face a wave of departures from people who have been waiting for a safer moment to act.
What would make employees leave — the benefits gaps driving departure intent
Employee Wellbeing and Mental Health
Mental health has moved from the edges of the benefits conversation to the centre of it. Employees are not just looking for an EAP phone number buried in their onboarding packet. They want to know that their employer takes their mental health seriously, communicates what support is available, and creates a culture where using that support is not a career risk. The data from 2025 and 2026 shows most workplaces are still falling well short of that bar.
13. 92% of Employees Say Mental Health Benefits Are Important for a Positive Workplace Culture
NAMI’s 2025 Workplace Mental Health Poll, conducted by Ipsos in January 2025 with 2,376 full-time employees at companies with 100 or more workers, found that 92% of respondents, regardless of age, gender, career stage, or management level, said that employer-sponsored mental health coverage is important or would be important for creating a positive workplace culture.
That puts mental health benefits almost on par with how employees value health insurance itself.
That near-universal agreement is significant. It is not a generational preference or a niche concern. It reflects where the entire workforce is right now. The challenge is not getting employees to value mental health benefits. It is getting employers to deliver them in a way that employees can actually find and use.
Source: NAMI, Workplace Mental Health Poll
14. Only 53% of Employees Know How to Access Mental Health Care Through Their Employer
Offering a mental health benefit and making it accessible are two very different things. The same NAMI 2025 poll found that only 53% of employees know how to access mental health care through their employer-sponsored health insurance.
That means close to half the workforce is sitting on a benefit they cannot use, not because it does not exist, but because no one has shown them how to get to it.
The access gap is even wider among managers. The poll found that 45% of employees at the manager level do not know how to access mental health care through their employer’s health plan, and 22% of managers are not even sure whether their employer offers mental health benefits at all.
This is a communication problem as much as it is a benefits design problem. Benefits that are hard to find, confusingly structured, or poorly explained during enrollment might as well not exist for a large portion of the workforce.
The mental health gap — what employees say they need vs what they can actually access
15. 48% of Employees Worry They Would Be Judged for Discussing Mental Health at Work
Despite widespread agreement that mental health is appropriate to discuss at work, a large share of employees still feel it is not safe for them personally to do so.
The 2026 NAMI-Ipsos Workplace Mental Health Poll found that 48% of employees worry they would be judged if they talked about their mental health struggles with colleagues. Among managers, 46% share that same concern about the career impact of speaking openly about their mental health at work.
The top barriers employees cite for staying silent are fear of stigma and judgment, the absence of others leading those conversations, not wanting to appear weak, fear of losing opportunities or facing retaliation, and their job itself being a significant contributor to their mental health challenges.
This matters for benefits utilisation. If employees feel that using mental health benefits marks them as a problem or a liability, they will not use them. The culture around mental health has to shift alongside the benefit offering, otherwise the investment in coverage is largely wasted.
Source: NAMI, Workplace Mental Health Poll
16. 48% of Employees Have Left a Job for Reasons Related to Their Mental Health
Mental health is not just a wellbeing issue. It is a retention issue with measurable financial consequences. Research from Mind Share Partners’ 2025 Mental Health at Work Report found that 48% of employees in the U.S. have left a job at some point in their career for reasons tied to their mental health, and two thirds of those departures were voluntary.
People chose to leave, not because they were pushed out, but because staying had become unsustainable.
That figure has grown steadily over the past several years. It is especially pronounced among younger workers, who are both more likely to experience mental health challenges at work and more willing to act on them by leaving.
For employers, the practical implication is straightforward: workplaces that do not actively support employee mental health will continue to lose people to ones that do.
Source: Mind Share Partners, Mental Health at Work Report
17. Deloitte Found That 77% of Employees Have Experienced Burnout at Least Once
Burnout is not an edge case. Deloitte’s research found that 77% of employees have experienced burnout in their current job at least once, and the pace of corporate change, combined with leaner teams and higher workloads, means the conditions driving burnout have not improved in most organisations.
Burnout has a direct relationship with benefit utilisation and benefit perception. Employees who are burned out are less likely to feel their employer cares about them, more likely to disengage from available resources, and more likely to be scanning for a way out.
According to data from the Global Wellness Institute, companies that integrate wellbeing into leadership and culture can see up to 20% higher productivity. The challenge is that most wellbeing programs are still designed as standalone perks rather than as part of how work actually gets done.
Source: Deloitte, Workplace Burnout Survey
18. Every $1 Invested in Mental Health Support Yields Around $4 in Productivity Gains and Reduced Absenteeism
The return on investment for mental health benefits is well documented. Research from the National Safety Council and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that every dollar invested in mental health support by an employer generates approximately $4 in return through productivity gains and reduced absenteeism. That is a 4:1 ratio on what many organisations still treat as a discretionary spend.
Separate research consistently shows that employees who feel supported in their wellbeing are three times more likely to be engaged at work, and organisations with strong wellbeing strategies see up to 11% lower turnover as a result.
The business case for investing properly in mental health benefits is not soft. It is backed by direct cost data, and the cost of not investing is always higher than the budget line makes it look.
Source: Paychex
19. 3 in 10 Employees Say Senior Leaders Do Not Prioritise Mental Health
Investment in mental health benefits only goes so far if leadership behaviour sends a different signal. Deloitte’s research found that roughly three in ten employees believe their senior leaders do not actually prioritise mental health, despite whatever formal programs may be in place. That perception matters because employees take cultural cues from what leaders do, not what company policy says.
The 2026 NAMI poll reinforces this. It found that managers who feel their company has provided them with adequate mental health resources are far more likely to support their teams effectively.
Specifically, 90% of managers with proper company-provided resources feel prepared to support their direct reports around mental health, compared to just 61% of managers without those resources. Managers who feel equipped also report significantly lower burnout rates themselves, 45% compared to 73% among those without adequate support.
The data points to something practical: mental health culture runs through the manager layer. If managers are not supported, trained, and given clear tools, they cannot create the environment that makes benefits feel safe to use.
Source: Deloitte, Mental Health at Work
Financial Wellness and Economic Stress
Financial stress is one of the most consistent and well-documented drains on workplace productivity, yet it remains one of the most underfunded areas of most benefits packages.
The research in 2025 and 2026 is especially clear on this: employees are more financially stretched than they have been in over a decade, and that stress is crossing over into their working hours in ways that cost employers billions every year.
20. Financial Stress Costs U.S. Employers More Than $1.1 Trillion in Lost Productivity Each Year
A 2025 study by industry analyst firm Valoir, based on a survey of more than 500 hourly and salaried U.S. employees, estimated that financial stress costs U.S. employers over $1.1 trillion annually in lost productivity.
The average worker spends 3.3 hours per week during working hours dealing with or thinking about personal financial issues. For roughly 8% of employees, that figure climbs to 10 or more hours per week on the clock.
Separate research from BrightPlan puts the figure at 7 hours of lost productivity per week per financially stressed employee, which it estimates costs employers $183 billion annually.
The range across studies is wide, but every piece of credible research points in the same direction: financial stress is not something employees leave at the door when they come to work, and the productivity cost to employers is substantial.
Source: Valoir, Employee Financial Wellness Report
21. 57% of Employees Say Finances Are the Top Cause of Stress in Their Lives
PwC’s Employee Financial Wellness Survey found that 57% of full-time employees identify finances as the number one source of stress in their lives, ahead of job stress, health concerns, and relationship issues.
Among those who are financially stressed, 56% say they spend three or more hours per week at work dealing with or thinking about personal financial problems.
The stress does not stay contained to financial worries. PwC found it spills into multiple areas of employees’ lives: mental health, sleep quality, self-esteem, physical health, and relationships at home. One in three full-time employees said that money worries have had a direct negative impact on their productivity at work.
Importantly, financial stress is not just a low-income problem. PwC’s research found that 28% of workers report running out of money between paychecks all or part of the time, and 15% of those earning at least $100,000 annually said the same. Employers who assume their higher-paid workforce is financially secure are often wrong.
Financial stress impact — what employee money anxiety is costing employers
- Employees under financial stress are twice as likely to be looking for a new job — financial anxiety and departure intent are directly linked
- 83% of employees cite rising costs as their top stressor — ahead of workload, relationships, and career concerns
- Employees staying out of financial necessity are 54% less likely to be holistically healthy — creating a compounding health and productivity drag
- Financial wellness benefits have a clear ROI — employees with access to financial guidance report significantly higher job satisfaction and loyalty
22. Employees Today Are 12 Percentage Points Less Likely to Feel in Control of Their Finances Than in 2016
MetLife’s 2026 Employee Benefit Trends Study includes a ten-year comparison that puts today’s financial picture in sharp context.
Compared with 2016, employees in 2026 are 12 percentage points less likely to feel in control of their finances, and five percentage points less likely to have a three-month emergency savings cushion, despite job satisfaction and intent-to-stay scores that look similar to a decade ago.
That gap between how employees feel about their job and how they feel about their finances tells the real story behind the job-hugging data discussed above in the article.
Employees may be content enough at work not to actively look for something else, but their financial confidence has been eroded by a decade of inflation spikes, pandemic disruption, and rising living costs. That underlying strain is what makes financial wellness benefits so important right now, and so underused in most organisations.
Source: MetLife
23. Financially Stressed Employees Are Twice as Likely to Be Looking for a New Job
Financial stress does not just hurt productivity. It accelerates departure planning. PwC’s research found that employees who feel significant financial pressure are twice as likely as their non-financially stressed colleagues to be actively looking for a new job.
And 73% of financially stressed employees said an employer that cared more about their financial wellbeing would be more attractive to them.
Bank of America’s 2025 workplace financial wellness study, which analysed data from 88,735 active 401(k) participants, reinforced this picture: 66% of employees report being stressed about their financial situation, and 76% believe the cost of living is outpacing the growth in their income.
Those two figures together paint a picture of a workforce that feels it is falling behind and is receptive to any employer willing to help.
Source: PwC, Employee Financial Wellness Survey
24. 68% of Employees Say Their Financial Situation Prevents Them from Taking Care of Their Wellbeing
Wellhub’s 2026 employee benefits research found that 68% of employees say their financial situation directly prevents them from looking after their own health and wellbeing.
That is a particularly important figure for HR teams to sit with: a large portion of the workforce is not accessing wellbeing benefits because they cannot afford the out-of-pocket costs that often accompany them, or because financial stress has consumed so much of their mental bandwidth that managing their health feels like one problem too many.
This is where financial wellness and general wellbeing benefits intersect. Emergency savings programs, student loan repayment assistance, earned wage access, and employer HSA contributions all reduce the day-to-day financial pressure that prevents employees from engaging with the rest of their benefits package. Financial wellness is not a standalone benefit.
It is the foundation that makes other benefits more usable.
Source: Wellhub, 2026 Employee Benefits Trends
25. Only 76% of Workers Are Satisfied with Their Company’s Financial Benefits
Despite growing employer awareness of financial stress, most workers do not feel their employer is doing enough. SHRM data cited by the University of Phoenix found that 76% of workers are not satisfied with their company’s financial benefits, which is a striking figure given how much employers have talked about expanding financial wellness offerings in recent years.
The gap between employer intent and employee experience on financial wellness mirrors the same gap seen in health benefits and mental health. Employers are increasing investment, but the benefits being added are often not reaching the people who need them most, or are not being communicated in a way that drives actual use.
A Transamerica report projects that between 40 and 60% of employers will offer a comprehensive financial wellness program by the end of 2026. The quality and accessibility of those programs will determine whether that investment closes the gap or simply adds another underutilised benefit to the list.
Source: SHRM
Flexibility, Work Preferences and Work-Life Balance
Flexibility has crossed the line from a competitive advantage to a baseline expectation. For most employees with remote-capable jobs, it is no longer a perk being weighed against salary. It is a condition of employment. Recent data makes that shift very clear, and it also reveals what happens to retention when employers underestimate how seriously workers take it.
26. 60% of Remote-Capable Employees Prefer a Hybrid Work Arrangement
Gallup’s hybrid work research consistently finds that around 60% of employees in remote-capable roles prefer a hybrid arrangement, where they split time between home and the office.
About 30% prefer to be fully remote, and fewer than 10% prefer to be in the office full time. That means roughly nine in ten employees with jobs that could be done remotely want some form of flexibility built into how they work.
The preference is not about avoiding work. It is about having enough control over the work day to manage it effectively. Gallup’s 2025 data found that satisfaction peaks when employees spend roughly three days in the office and two at home, a pattern that aligns with what the OECD describes as the hybrid sweet spot.
That balance gives employees the focus and autonomy of remote work alongside the collaboration and connection of in-person time.
Flexibility preferences — what remote-capable employees actually want from their work arrangement
27. 46% of Remote-Capable Workers Would Be Unlikely to Stay If Their Employer Eliminated Flexibilit
The preference for flexible work is not passive. Research from Robert Half found that 46% of remote-capable workers said they would be somewhat or very unlikely to stay in their current role if their employer eliminated remote work options. A separate survey cited by Zoom found that 60% of workers say they would actively look for a new job if hybrid or remote flexibility were no longer permitted.
Stanford economist Nick Bloom’s research adds a financial frame to this. Workers consistently report valuing hybrid flexibility at roughly the equivalent of an 8% salary increase. About 40% say they would accept a pay cut of 5% or more to keep remote work as part of their arrangement.
For employers thinking about the cost of flexibility, it is worth comparing that against the cost of replacing the people who leave when it disappears.
Source: Robert Half
28. 76% of Hybrid and Remote Workers Report Better Work-Life Balance, and 61% Experience Less Burno
Gallup’s research found that 76% of full-time remote and hybrid workers report improved work-life balance compared to fully on-site arrangements, and 61% say they experience less burnout or fatigue. Those are not marginal improvements. They represent a meaningful shift in how people feel about their working lives, and they have downstream effects on engagement, absenteeism, and retention.
For employers navigating the return-to-office debate, this data is worth weighing carefully. The argument for in-office work often centres on collaboration and culture. Those are legitimate considerations.
But the data on wellbeing consistently favours flexibility, and employees who are burned out and unbalanced are less productive, less engaged, and more likely to be scanning for somewhere else to go.
Source: Gallup, hybrid work and wellbeing data, via Founder Reports
29. 65% of Gen Z and Millennials Say They Would Leave If Forced Back to the Office Full Time
Younger generations have the strongest attachment to flexible work, and the highest willingness to act on it. A 2025 Deloitte survey found that 65% of Gen Z and Millennial employees say they would leave their job if they were required to return to the office full time.
Among Gen Z specifically, 66% said a company’s work setup was a significant factor in why they took their current job in the first place, compared to just 40% of Baby Boomers.
This matters for workforce planning. Gen Z is the fastest-growing segment of the labour market, and their expectations around flexibility are not softening.
Employers who build their workplace policies around the preferences of older, more office-oriented generations risk finding themselves increasingly unable to attract or keep younger talent as the decade progresses.
Source: Deloitte
30. 83% of Employees Say Flexibility Makes Them Happier and More Likely to Stay Longer
SHRM data found that 83% of employees say workplace flexibility makes them happier at work and increases the likelihood they will stay with the same employer for a longer period. The Work Institute’s 2024 Retention Report reinforces this: 80% of employees said they would be more loyal to their employer if offered schedule flexibility.
These figures are consistent across multiple research sources and suggest that flexibility, when structured well, is one of the most cost-effective retention tools available to employers.
It costs significantly less than increasing salaries, adding new benefit lines, or running employee engagement programs, and the loyalty it generates is both broad and durable.
Source: SHRM
31. 50.9% of Employees Would Accept Lower Pay for Better Work-Life Balance, and 40.8% for Greater Schedule Flexibility
SHRM’s research found that just over half of employees, 50.9%, say they would accept a lower salary in exchange for improved work-life balance, and 40.8% say they would trade pay for greater schedule flexibility. These are not hypothetical preferences. They are real trade-offs that a significant portion of the workforce is actively willing to make.
For HR teams working within tight compensation budgets, this is an important data point. Benefits and flexibility are not just supplements to pay.
For a large portion of the workforce, they are substitutes for pay when structured and communicated well. An employer that cannot compete on salary alone has meaningful room to compete on how work is arranged, when it happens, and how much control employees have over their own time.
Onboarding, Engagement and Recognition
The first few months of employment are where a lot of retention battles are quietly won or lost. How a new hire is brought in, how quickly they feel connected to the work and to their team, and whether they receive genuine recognition for their contributions all shape decisions that will not fully surface for months.
The data on this is consistent and has not changed in its direction for years: most organisations are still getting onboarding and recognition wrong, and they are paying for it in turnover.
32. Only 12% of Employees Say Their Company Does Onboarding Well
Gallup’s research consistently finds that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organisation does a great job of onboarding new hires. That means 88% of employees rate their onboarding experience as somewhere between adequate and actively poor. For a process that directly influences whether someone stays past their first year, that is a remarkably low bar for most organisations to clear.
The consequences show up quickly. SHRM data found that 20% of employee turnover happens within the first 45 days alone. Enboarder’s 2025 HR Leader Survey found that for roughly one in five HR leaders, half of their new employees leave during the first 90 days.
Those are not long tenures. They are expensive failures that start at the point of hire and compound through every week of poor onboarding that follows.
Source: Gallup, Onboarding Research
33. Employees with Strong Onboarding Are 69% More Likely to Stay for Three Years
Research from the Brandon Hall Group found that employees who go through a structured, high-quality onboarding process are 69% more likely to stay with their employer for at least three years. SHRM’s data aligns with this, showing that organisations with a standardised onboarding process improve new hire productivity by 50% compared to those without one.
The connection between onboarding and retention is not incidental. When new employees are given clear role expectations, introduced properly to their team, and shown how their benefits work from day one, they make a faster psychological commitment to the organisation.
That commitment is what reduces the early attrition that costs employers so much in recruitment, training, and lost productivity every time a new hire walks out.
Onboarding and engagement — the gap between what most companies do and what the data says works
- Manager involvement is the single largest predictor of onboarding success — yet 28.8% of hiring managers provide new hires with no guidance or training at all during onboarding
- Hybrid onboarding produces the highest satisfaction at 75% — combining in-person and digital elements outperforms either format alone
- New hires who receive early recognition are twice as likely to remain through the first twelve months compared to those who receive little or no early acknowledgment
34. Manager Involvement Makes Onboarding 3.4 Times More Likely to Be Rated Exceptional
Gallup’s onboarding research found that new hires are 3.4 times more likely to describe their onboarding as exceptional when their manager is actively involved in the process. Yet Enboarder’s 2025 survey found that 28.8% of hiring managers provide new hires with no guidance or training at all during onboarding.
That gap between what drives onboarding success and what actually happens in practice explains a lot about why so many employees feel underprepared in their first months.
The technology used for onboarding matters far less than whether the manager shows up consistently, sets clear expectations early, and checks in with enough regularity that a new hire never has to guess whether they are on track.
Source: Gallup, Onboarding and Manager Involvement Research
35. 94% of Employees Would Stay Longer at a Company That Invests in Their Career Development
LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report found that 94% of employees say they would stay longer with an employer that actively invested in their learning and career development. That figure has been consistent across multiple years of LinkedIn’s research and continues to be one of the strongest signals in the retention data.
Career development is not just a nice-to-have benefit for younger workers. It ranks as the number one driver of long-term retention across generations.
When employees can see a path forward inside their current organisation, they are far less likely to go looking for one somewhere else. When that path is unclear or absent, the search begins quietly, often well before it becomes visible to managers or HR.
Source: LinkedIn, Workplace Learning Report
36. High-Engagement Workplaces See 21% Higher Productivity and Up to 59% Less Turnover
Gallup’s research on employee engagement has consistently found that highly engaged workplaces outperform their peers across nearly every measurable outcome. Engaged employees are approximately 21% more productive than their disengaged counterparts.
On turnover, Gallup’s data shows that high-engagement organisations experience 21% lower voluntary turnover in high-turnover industries and up to 51% lower turnover in low-turnover environments, numbers that have been replicated across multiple years of research.
Despite this, global employee engagement fell to 21% in 2025 according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, its lowest level in years. That drop is costing the global economy an estimated $438 billion in lost productivity annually.
The single largest driver of that decline is manager disengagement, which has fallen sharply since 2022. Since managers are the primary conduit for recognition, development conversations, and day-to-day connection with employees, their disengagement has a multiplying effect across their entire teams.
Engagement impact — what high engagement delivers and what low engagement costs
- Manager quality accounts for 70% of the variance in team engagement — Gallup’s most consistently replicated finding. Training managers is the highest-leverage engagement investment available
- Recognition frequency matters more than program design — only 19% of employees receive meaningful weekly recognition, yet weekly recognition produces 9x more sense of belonging
- Career development visibility is the number one driver of long-term retention — employees who can see a path forward are far less likely to look for one elsewhere
37. 80% of Employees Say Regular Recognition Improves Their Loyalty to Their Organisation
Gallup’s recognition research found that 80% of employees say regular recognition directly improves their sense of loyalty to their employer. Yet the same research consistently finds that only around 22% of employees feel they receive the right amount of recognition for the work they do, a figure that has not moved in three consecutive years despite growing executive awareness of the issue.
Recognition is one of the lowest-cost, highest-return retention levers available to any organisation. It does not require a budget line or a platform subscription at the most basic level.
A specific, timely acknowledgment from a direct manager of work that deserved it costs nothing and consistently registers as more meaningful to employees than a generic annual award or a company-wide shoutout they barely noticed.
The data suggests the problem is not that employers do not know recognition matters. It is that they have not turned that knowledge into a daily management habit.
Source: Gallup, cited via Thirst Employee Retention Statistics
Retention and Turnover Economics
Turnover is one of those costs that most organisations systematically underestimate. The direct expenses, recruiting fees, job advertising, interviewing time, and onboarding, are visible and trackable.
The indirect costs, productivity loss during the vacancy, the time a manager spends replacing someone instead of developing the rest of the team, and the institutional knowledge that walks out with every departure, are far harder to put a number on. Together they add up to considerably more than most finance teams account for. The data in this section puts those numbers into focus.
38. Replacing an Employee Costs Between 50% and 200% of Their Annual Salary
Gallup and SHRM both estimate that replacing a single employee costs between 0.5 and 2 times their annual salary, depending on the role.
SHRM’s breakdown puts entry-level replacements at roughly 50% of salary, mid-level technical roles at around 80%, and senior or specialised positions at 200% or more. Some estimates for C-suite departures exceed 213% of annual compensation when all costs are factored in.
To make those figures concrete: for a company with 100 employees earning an average salary of $50,000, Gallup estimates that turnover costs could run anywhere from $660,000 to $2.6 million annually, depending on how often people are leaving and at what level.
Most finance teams are working with budget assumptions well below that range. Most HR teams know it, which is why the business case for retention investment is rarely as difficult to make as it feels.
Replacement cost calculator — enter a salary to see what losing that person actually costs
39. U.S. Voluntary Turnover Has Cooled to 13% But Remains Well Above Pre-Pandemic Levels
Mercer’s 2025 Workforce Turnover Survey found that average U.S. voluntary turnover has declined to approximately 13% annually, down from a peak of 17.3% during the Great Resignation in 2023 and a high of 24.7% in 2022. That cooldown reflects a labour market that has become more cautious rather than more satisfied.
As discussed in above, much of the reduced quit activity is driven by employees staying put out of financial necessity, not genuine commitment.
BLS JOLTS data tells a similar story. Monthly quits fell to a rate of 1.9% by February 2026, the lowest level in several years. But Gallup’s Q4 2025 research simultaneously found that 51% of employees are either actively looking for a new role or watching for opportunities.
That combination of low quit rates and high latent exit intent is the clearest possible signal of pent-up turnover waiting for conditions to improve.
Turnover economics — the real cost of losing people and what is driving most departures
- Limited career growth opportunities — the number one exit driver. Addressed by visible development pathways and learning investment
- Poor management quality — managers determine 70% of the variance in team engagement. Manager training is retention training
- Compensation below market rate — regular benchmarking and pay transparency reduce surprise departures
- Lack of flexibility and work-life balance — one of the most cost-effective retention levers available
40. 75% of Voluntary Turnover Is Preventable
Work Institute’s 2025 Retention Report concluded that approximately 75% of voluntary employee departures are preventable, meaning the vast majority of attrition is not inevitable. It is a fixable management, culture, or compensation problem that could have been addressed if it had been identified and acted on early enough.
The top reasons employees consistently give for leaving, across multiple years of exit interview data, are limited career growth opportunities, poor management quality, compensation that does not keep pace with market rates, and a lack of work-life balance. None of those are mysteries.
They are known, measurable, and in most cases addressable before an employee reaches the point of resignation. The gap between knowing these drivers and acting on them before someone has already mentally checked out is where most preventable turnover occurs.
Voluntary turnover by industry — how sectors compare and what the gap means for HR strategy
41. U.S. Businesses Lose Roughly $1 Trillion Per Year to Voluntary Turnover
Gallup estimates that U.S. businesses collectively lose approximately $1 trillion annually to voluntary turnover when all direct and indirect costs are aggregated. That figure includes recruitment and onboarding expenses, productivity loss during vacancies, manager time diverted to hiring and training, and the broader morale and institutional knowledge costs that accompany every departure.
SHRM puts the average cost per hire at $4,700, but that number captures only the direct recruiting outlay. It does not include the six to nine months of reduced productivity that typically follows as a new hire gets up to speed, or the downstream cost to the remaining team members who absorb additional workload during the gap. The real cost of a departure is almost always higher than the number that ends up in a budget discussion.
Source: Gallup, The $1 Trillion Employee Turnover Problem
42. 20% of New Hire Turnover Happens Within the First 45 Days
SHRM data found that 20% of employee turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment. That is a remarkably short window for an organisation to lose a hire it spent time and money recruiting, selecting, and bringing on board.
Enboarder’s 2025 HR Leader Survey found the situation is even more acute for some organisations: roughly one in five HR leaders reported that half of their new hires leave within the first 90 days.
The financial toll of first-year attrition is specific and significant. When a high-performing employee leaves within their first six to twelve months, the organisation typically loses around 20% of that person’s salary in direct costs alone, before accounting for the productivity that never materialised, the team disruption, or the cost of restarting the search.
Investing properly in onboarding, as discussed in the previous section, is the most direct way to reduce this particular category of loss.
Source: SHRM, Turnover Research
43. Paid Family Leave Can Reduce Turnover by Up to 70% in Affected Employee Groups
Research and programme evaluations across multiple organisations found that generous paid family leave policies significantly reduce attrition among employees returning from leave, with some cohorts reporting turnover reductions of up to 70%.
That figure is not universal across all organisations and programme designs, but the directional finding is consistent: employees who take leave and return to a well-supported work environment are far more likely to stay than those who feel unsupported during that transition.
Paid family leave acts as a particularly high-leverage retention tool because the employees it retains tend to be experienced, mid-career workers whose departure would otherwise carry the highest replacement costs. Keeping one experienced employee through a well-designed leave policy typically costs a fraction of what replacing them would require.
Source: Various programme evaluations
44. New Hires Who Receive Early Recognition Are Twice as Likely to Stay Through Their First Year
Workhuman’s client data found that new hires who receive genuine recognition early in their employment are approximately twice as likely to remain with their employer through the first twelve months compared to peers who receive little or no early acknowledgment.
That finding connects directly to onboarding quality, manager involvement, and the broader culture of recognition discussed earlier in this article.
The first year is the most fragile period of any employment relationship. Employees are forming their impression of whether the organisation lives up to what was promised during recruitment, whether their manager is engaged with their development, and whether the work feels worth staying for.
Recognition in that window does not have to be elaborate. It has to be specific, timely, and genuine. When it is, it significantly changes the probability that someone will still be there a year from now.
Source: Workhuman, Recognition and New Hire Retention Research
Conclusion
The employee benefits data does not point to a single crisis. It points to several pressures landing at the same time, and the organisations struggling most are the ones managing them in isolation.
Healthcare costs are rising, and shifting more of that cost onto employees is an understandable budget response. But half of employees are already avoiding care they need because of out-of-pocket costs. Pushing more onto a financially stretched workforce defers the problem rather than solving it, while quietly reducing trust in the benefits package overall.
On retention, quit rates have cooled but for the wrong reasons. More than half of employees are staying because the job market feels too risky, not because they feel genuinely committed. That kind of stability has a short shelf life.
What runs through all of these findings is a consistent gap between what employers think their benefits are delivering and what employees actually experience. Spending is increasing but engagement, health, and loyalty scores have barely moved. The problem is rarely the benefits themselves. It is how they are communicated, how easy they are to access, and whether the culture around them makes people feel safe to use them.
The data here is specific enough to act on. The question is whether it gets acted on before the employees quietly waiting for a better moment decide that moment has arrived.
