The problem is not the products
Around 40% of UK employee benefits go completely unused.
That's not a niche finding. It comes up consistently across utilisation data, broker reviews, and employer surveys. And when you dig into why, the answer is almost never what people expect.
It's not that employees don't care about their health. It's not that the EAP is inadequate or the PMI policy has the wrong excess. It's that when an employee is sitting at their desk at 11pm, trying to work through a mental health difficulty, they don't know what support they have access to - or they're not sure, and they'd rather not find out by spending 20 minutes reading a PDF.
That's the actual problem. Not the products.
The scale of what's being lost
UK employers lose an estimated £15 billion annually to misaligned or poorly communicated benefits. Employees underestimate the value of their benefits package by around 30% on average - which means when it comes to a retention conversation, or a difficult stretch at work, the safety net they have is effectively invisible.
Only 52% of UK employees feel their employer communicates benefits to them effectively. More than a third can't recall whether their employer communicates benefits to them regularly at all.
These aren't failures of the products. They're failures of communication.
Why the "more benefits" instinct is usually wrong
The reflex when utilisation is low is to question whether the benefits themselves are the right ones. Better EAP. More comprehensive PMI. Add financial wellbeing. Add menopause support.
Sometimes that's the right answer. But most of the time, the underlying package is reasonable - and the problem is that employees either don't know what's in it, can't remember it when they need it, or gave up the first time they tried to access something.
There's a useful test: ask a random sample of employees what support they'd have access to if they were struggling with anxiety. Not HR, not the benefits team - a regular employee, three months into their tenure, on a busy afternoon.
Most can't answer. Not because the support doesn't exist. Because no one told them in a way that was easy to remember and use.
A UK financial services company moved to a new benefits platform with a comprehensive communication campaign alongside it. They achieved 80%+ login rates in week one. Annual costs reduced by over 80%. The platform didn't drive those results. The communication did.
The engagement cycle, explained simply
Insufficient communication → low understanding → low utilisation → no experienced value → lower engagement → next year's review: "are these benefits actually worth it?"
The cycle reinforces itself. Low utilisation leads HR teams to question whether the products are right, which leads to platform or policy changes, which require another round of education that again doesn't happen, which leads to low utilisation.
You can break this at any point. The intervention doesn't have to be the first step. A utilisation audit that reveals which benefits are being used and which aren't - and then asks why - is a perfectly good starting point. The answer is almost always "people didn't know" or "the access path was unclear".
What good communication actually requires
Six things. They're not complicated.
1. Timing
Benefits communication at enrolment only doesn't work. Employees are new, overwhelmed, and can't retain it. By the time they need the private GP or the EAP counselling, the induction is six months behind them.
Good communication is continuous and lifecycle-triggered. New starters get a structured onboarding sequence over 30 days. Employees approaching life events - having a child, hitting a significant tenure milestone - get relevant reminders. January, when stress and health anxiety spike, is a natural moment to surface mental health support. Winter is when musculoskeletal issues peak.
None of this is sophisticated. Most of it is just a calendar.
2. Plain language
"Access to an Employee Assistance Programme providing confidential support for personal and work-related concerns" is not a sentence an employee on a difficult Tuesday will act on.
"If you're struggling - with stress, money, relationships, or anything else - you have free, confidential support available. Here's how to access it in one click." That one they'll use.
Most benefits documentation is written for contracts, not for stressed humans making decisions in the middle of their day. Rewrite it.
3. Personalisation
Generic communications underperform. An email about PMI dental benefits sent to a 24-year-old who's been with the company for three months will be ignored. The same information, sent at the right moment - when dental issues are seasonally common, or triggered by a life event - is much more likely to land.
Segmentation doesn't need to be complex. Tenure, life stage, and department will take you a long way.
4. Multi-channel
Email alone is not enough. App notifications, manager conversations, team briefings, intranet banners, and physical posters (where relevant) all serve different employees in different contexts. The employee who misses the email reads the Slack message. The one who doesn't open notifications remembers their manager mentioning it in a one-to-one.
No single channel covers everyone.
5. Show the total value
Employees systematically underestimate what their package is worth because most of the value is invisible. Salary is concrete. PMI, death in service, income protection, EAP, occupational health - these feel abstract until they're needed.
Total Reward Statements, which set out the full value of an employee's package including non-salary components, significantly increase retention intent. When employees can see that their package is worth £8,000 more than their base salary implies, the retention conversation changes.
This is one of the cheapest and most underused tools available.
6. Remove friction
Every step between "I want to use this benefit" and "I have accessed it" is a drop-off point. Employees will not search for a policy number, phone a helpline during business hours, or fill in a form before accessing support. Most will simply not bother.
The question to ask of every benefit: can an employee access this within 60 seconds, starting from nothing? If the answer is no, that's the problem.
The presenteeism argument
Most focus on benefits utilisation is on absenteeism - employees who are off sick. But presenteeism, working while unwell, costs UK employers considerably more.
Employees work through mental health difficulties, physical discomfort, financial stress, and relationship breakdown because they don't know support is available. A single well-timed communication - "You have mental health support available. Here's how to access it in 15 seconds" - can shift an employee from presenteeism to seeking help.
The economic case is not subtle. Replacing an employee costs 50 - 200% of their annual salary. If a well-placed communication prevents one resignation at a £45,000 salary, the entire year's comms budget has paid for itself.
The ROI of getting this right
£4.70 return per £1 invested in wellbeing - but only when employees engage with the support available. If they don't engage, the ROI is approximately zero.
Employees who understand their benefits are 2.6x more likely to remain with their employer. Organisations with effective internal communications are 3.5x more likely to outperform their peers. Employees with high benefits awareness report 23% higher engagement scores.
These aren't marginal gains. They are material.
What most teams get wrong
The most common mistake is treating benefits communication as an annual event tied to enrolment or renewal. Everything goes out in October, is ignored by most people, and doesn't come up again until the following October.
The second most common mistake is conflating "we sent an email" with "employees know about this". If 30% of employees are opening benefits communications, 70% are not.
The third mistake is assuming employees will ask when they need something. They usually won't. Either they don't know what to ask for, they don't want to reveal the problem they're trying to solve, or they're too busy.
The infrastructure needs to work without employees having to try.
A simple audit to find the gap
Five questions. If the answer to any of them is no or "I'm not sure", that's where to start:
- Can a new employee who started last month name three benefits they have access to?
- Does your communication schedule extend beyond enrolment?
- Is there a zero-friction access route for your top three most-needed benefits?
- When did you last rewrite your benefits copy in plain language?
- Have employees ever received a Total Reward Statement showing the full value of their package?
The bottom line
A basic benefits package communicated thoughtfully will typically outperform a comprehensive one that employees don't understand.
The money is already being spent. The products are already in place. The question is whether employees can find them when they need them.
Most of the time, they can't. Not because the benefits are wrong. Because no one made them easy to find.
That's fixable. And it doesn't require buying more benefits.