Addressing Wellness Needs Through Workplace Benefits

March 2025

Financial, physical and emotional wellness challenges influence all aspects of a person’s life, including their work. New LIMRA research shows that as wellness challenges become more pervasive in today’s workforce, workplace benefits can significantly help workers address these issues.

The Wellness Challenge

Many factors are contributing to the growing need for wellness solutions, which can cover a range of financial, physical, emotional and other needs. Economic factors have placed pressure on financial wellness levels as inflation and high interest rates increase the cost of living, with many workers living paycheck to paycheck and taking on added credit card debt to meet day-to-day needs. Generation Z and younger Millennials are often saddled with debt, and many feel that the American dream of home ownership and related goals are out of their reach as rising home prices and high mortgage rates challenge their ability to purchase a home.

The pandemic increased the prevalence of mental and behavioral health issues among workers, increasing the need for solutions in these areas, and these issues remain, even though the peak of the pandemic is behind us. According to LIMRA’s 2024 Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker (BEAT) study, younger workers, in particular, are struggling with behavioral health concerns, more so than older workers. Ninety-one percent of Gen Z workers report that they experienced at least one mental health challenge in the past year, compared to just 59 percent of workers who are Baby Boomers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Millennials and Gen Z workers currently make up more than 54 percent of the workforce. Gen Z workers, born between 1997 and 2012, now make up 18 percent of the workforce, recently eclipsing Baby Boomers. This percentage will increase as younger Gen Zs enter the workforce. In short, more future workers will have experienced mental health challenges.

According to LIMRA’s 2024 Financial Wellness Index, a measure of financial health and stress, the average American worker scores just 4.86 on a scale of 0 to 10. Demographically, female workers and younger workers score lower than male workers and older workers, respectively. Consequently, financial wellness is a concern for many.

Financial wellness manifests itself in a variety of wellness concerns, which can have a detrimental impact on an employee’s work. The more financially stressed employees are, the more likely they are to be distracted at work by personal financial, health and emotional worries.

Concerningly, stress levels are increasing for many workers. According to our study, most workers report that their financial, emotional and physical stress levels are either the same or have increased over the past 12 months. Fewer than 1 in 4 workers say their stress levels have decreased. Employee stress can result in high absenteeism, high turnover, increased benefits claims costs and reduced workforce productivity. As such, employers have a vested interest in improving the wellness levels of their employees. Employees who are confident in their personal financial situations, able to withstand unexpected expenses and capable of planning for a financially secure future are well positioned to be engaged and productive workers. Employees who score higher on the index find it easier to focus on their work, look forward to going to work each day, derive personal satisfaction from their job, and feel they have a reasonable work-life balance.

Workplace Solutions

Workplace benefits play a critical role in helping workers address the challenges and distractions they face. This can be accomplished through targeted benefits or services that address specific needs, enhancements to existing benefits, or through formal wellness programs. These programs and benefits can be provided on an employer-paid, contributory or voluntary basis. Our research reveals the importance that workplace benefits have on employee well-being:

• More than two-thirds of workers (68 percent) agree that the workplace benefits available to them through work are an important contributor to their financial wellness.
• A majority of workers feel that employers should offer services to help address employees' physical health stress (69 percent), emotional stress (68 percent) and financial stress (68 percent).
• Seventy-eight percent of workers feel it is important for employers to offer comprehensive insurance benefits, giving employees the option to participate, even if employees must pay for some or all of the benefit(s) themselves.
• Over 40 percent of workers say that using the benefits offered by their employer has reduced their financial stress (45 percent), emotional stress (42 percent) and physical stress (43 percent).

These findings support the value that workers place in having benefits available to them at work, and the important role they play in improving their well-being. It is in employers’ best interest to provide services and support to help employees improve their financial wellness. Positioning traditional and emerging benefits within a more holistic narrative addressing wellness needs can open new conversations around benefits offerings and help today’s workforce improve their health and well-being.

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