Every benefits professional strives to take an inclusive approach to their benefits package. But often, choosing components of a benefits package ultimately comes down to what best fits your company’s needs right now. As a company grows, it’s critical to make sure you’re taking into account the needs of all the unique populations within your organization. That’s why it’s critical to have inclusive benefits at the heart of your package, no matter how large your company is at the moment.
What are inclusive benefits?
Building an inclusive benefits package can mean different things, from inclusive education benefits — which aid all employees interested in further training, not just those with college educations seeking student loan assistance — to giving floating holidays and flexibility in scheduling. Ensuring that your benefits are inclusive from the start — whether your company is a team of two or 200 — signals that you value your employees wholeheartedly, regardless of age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, faith, or marital status. These values also signal to potential hires that you respect what they bring to the table.
Health benefits & inclusivity
Health benefits are particularly key when it comes to inclusivity. Since traditional health benefits sometimes ignore marginalized employees’ diverse needs, such as coverage for hearing devices or gender affirmation treatment, these areas may need to be supplemented in other ways. Two common areas where employers are building on their traditional health coverage include mental health (with many employers offering virtual therapy or coaching services) and fertility care (which 10% more employers have started offering since 2016).
Making your fertility benefits truly inclusive
Traditional fertility benefits offered through insurance require an infertility medical diagnosis, which excludes same-sex couples or people who may choose to use a gestational carrier. By shifting coverage from infertility to fertility, you can expand access to care to everyone who might need it.
Still, it isn’t enough to simply add on the benefits. Some fertility care programs limit membership by gender or service, excluding many LGBTQ couples or single individuals looking to expand their families. To avoid that, choose a fertility care partner whose offering covers everything from IVF and adoption to egg, sperm, and embryo freezing for everyone, including single people and those in same-sex partnerships.
Inclusive benefits don’t have to break your budget
There’s a misconception that providing inclusive benefits means covering all costs for your employees right away. In reality, you can determine what’s right for your company by starting out with modest contributions in more areas — ensuring that what you offer is inclusive — rather than making larger contributions in fewer areas. You can always scale up the monetary amounts you offer as you assess your employee benefit usage over time.
Some inclusive benefits have the added benefit of helping your company’s financial bottom line. For example, if you are able to contribute — even a modest amount — to fertility testing for anyone who requests it, you’ll be able to reduce medical spending long term. Sperm count and mobility tests can be as cheap as $50; tests that look at how your hormones relate to your ovarian reserve range from $200 to $1,000.
Covering these relatively low expenses for early testing can translate to avoiding several rounds of expensive IVF down the line. If a fertility test reveals that IVF will have a low likelihood of success, the patient can consider other options rather than going through multiple rounds of IVF, which costs $12,000 on average for each iteration.
The value of flexibility
The needs of your employees may change from month to month as they take on different medical costs within a given year. At Carrot, we allow companies to adjust their benefits packages throughout the year, not just during open enrollment. And we keep it simple for you: once you determine the amount you’re able to contribute, we personalize the care that your employees can access and tailor it to their needs. We specialize in helping your benefits grow as your company scales.
If you’re interested in learning more about Carrot and how we can create a customized fertility benefits plan for your organization, let us know.
.jpg)
