10 things we’ve learned at the REBA Congress 2025

Celebrating REBA’s tenth anniversary, this year’s REBA Congress, held on 19 June 2025 in London, featured more than 90 exhibitors and an impressive line-up of over 40 expert speakers.

It provided an invaluable opportunity for reward and benefits directors to understand how technological shifts, prevention and people risks are impacting health and wellbeing strategies. 

The event also saw delegates sign up to REBA Acumen, a new first-of-its-kind business information service, built to support strategic decision-making for reward and benefits leaders. 

Here’s 10 things we learned from yesterday’s jam-packed conference. 

Employers have their eyes set on prevention 

REBA’s Health and Wellbeing Research 2025, in partnership with AXA Health, was launched yesterday during the REBA Congress.

It found that nine-in-ten (91%) employers plan to proactively support preventative health in the next two years.

During that time, employers will introduce measures including raising health awareness (82%), behaviour change support (49%) and health assessments (44%). 

Harpreet Sarna, chief medical officer at Vitality, explained how prevention and early intervention is vital to shift the dial on employee health and reduce private medical insurance claims.

He said: “The power of prevention has historically been seen as this thing you've got to invest in now, and you only get the payoff in five or 10 years' time. But actually what we are seeing is you can change behaviours now.

“Those payoffs are going to be through a happier workforce and more productive workforce, one that doesn't need to claim as much. So even with limited budgets…if the intent is we need to make our employees healthier, a focus on prevention is probably the most powerful thing you’ve got.” 

Age-friendly strategies could be solution to increase economic growth

The global ageing population will likely lead to declines in GDP per capita if not addressed, warned keynote speaker Shruti Singh, senior economist in the skills and employment division at the OECD.

She highlighted research showing a projected decline of -5% in the UK’s real GDP capita between 2021 and 2050 if employment rates remain the same. 
 
Instead, she insisted that extending working lives can help improve economic productivity across the globe, citing OECD research which found extending working lives could boost GDP per capita by 19% in 2050 on average in OECD countries.

Organisations with a 10% higher share of workers aged 50 and over saw a 1.1% increase in productivity, Singh said. 

“If we don’t change our policies, business practices and attitudes towards ageing, it will have a quite profound negative impact,” she said. 

“If we do things differently, we can actually give better [employment] opportunities at all age groups,” she added. “It is quite possible to achieve and tap into the different talents of the different age groups.”
 
Among Singh's recommendations were age-inclusive hiring, career development at all ages and an age-positive culture. 

​​The ageing population is among the OECD’s top three mega trends, alongside climate change and globalisation, and AI.

Singh added: “Ageing is the less sexy topic of the three, and so it often gets little attention, even though we’ve known it’s been coming for years and years.” 

Family is a powerful way to unlock benefits engagement

Delegates at Congress shared stories of how they have had to think outside of the box when it comes to engaging hard to reach employees including those often in manual roles. 

Instead of trying to engage with them at work, employers have begun sending flyers that explain their benefits to their home addresses, so that their partners can also see and understand the benefits offering. 

“Take up went through the roof,” one delegate said. “You’ve got to get smart given so much of benefits should be a family decision.”
 
Law firm Mishcon de Reya also focused on family members by running a session for employees called ‘Caring for your loved ones’, after seeing that employees weren’t filling in things like expression of wish forms on their pension and life benefits.
 
“It was unbelievable the number of people who came along, because it wasn’t about them, it was about their families,” said reward director Ben Southworth. “It’s telling a wider story.”

Personalisation is just as essential as engagement 

Employers are ramping up investment in benefits technology to improve employee health and wellbeing, with impactful personalisation seen as key to turning that investment into stronger engagement, deeper trust, and long-term value for both individuals and the organisation.

Iain Clack, commercial director, Darwin - Mercer Marsh Benefits, said: “The return on investment of getting people to engage with your benefits is very important, but actually the value of investment of getting engaged employees with their personalised benefits means that you start to create a more societal-level change in your employee group.”

He argued this enabled employees to feel they work in a thriving, holistic organisation in which they feel well cared for.

Clack added: “That drives a huge amount of trust in terms of the engagement between employer and employee.” 

Employee benefits providers are continuing to adopt AI at pace 

This year’s Congress featured multiple benefits tools that leverage AI to help both employees and employers.

From Origin’s employer-only tool that pulls on global benefits information and data to quickly get reward and benefits professionals data points, to digital physiotherapy solutions from Sword which combines clinicians with AI to deliver expert care, to Euphoric’s AI-first benefits platform, the role of AI is certainly growing within the employee benefits world.

Chris Bruce, co-founder of Origin, said: "I have never been as excited to see the potential of AI in this industry.”

His excitement is perhaps unsurprising. REBA’s opening keynote speaker, mathematician, broadcaster and author, Professor Hannah Fry, detailed how technological advancements in AI and quantum computing will not just change how we work, but will also make profound changes to healthcare and medicine, and in turn our own longevity.  

She said: “Often culture and society lags behind what technology can do. If you paused AI research right now and didn't learn more, it would take us at least a decade to catch up and have all of our systems embed the advances that have already happened.” 

Employers have a duty to simplify complex financial jargon 

Ross Matthews, director, pensions at Centrica, explained why employers are responsible for helping employees to engage and understand their pension.

He said: “One of my frustrations is the saying around ‘we know it's complicated but’. We all have a duty to simplify things down so people really understand. 

“Get rid of the noise and talk about it in really simple terms, and use bite-sized videos a minute long to really communicate...we have a responsibility to do that. 

Laura Stewart Smith, head of pensions engagement at Aviva, added: “We have a responsibility as an industry to create plain language, jargon-free communications. 

“Also, we have a responsibility to look at how people want to be communicated to. So Tiktok-style videos could be really effective.

“We also need to think about making communications inclusive. Are documents easy for people to understand? We have a much better understanding of neurodiversity now, so how do we build that in?

“There are lots of different things that we can be doing to really work on ensuring that communications are relevant and engaging for those that are receiving them.”

Data can create the connected story you need

REBA’s Health and Wellbeing Research 2025, in partnership with AXA Health, found employers have big plans for their health and wellbeing data.

The majority of respondents (72%) plan to use it to provide people insights to the board/leadership team, and to identify actionable outcomes (65%). 

However, data relating to people risk, such as the impact of an ageing workforce on productivity and health and wellbeing, is less likely to be used. 

Less than half (40%) of employers said they are looking to forecast future people risk to the business in the next two years.

Obtaining and analysing data has always been a challenge for reward and benefits teams. 

Yet with new developments in benefits technology, employers have the opportunity to start consolidating data and bring it together to tell a more connected, joined-up story.

David Guy, strategic broking lead at Aon, explained the value of having data in one place.

He said: “You can use data brought together into one place to start spotting trends and start looking at what is the true risk to the workforce. 

“Those data points and trends can predict what future costs might look like and help prioritise the policies, benefits and the things you offer that are driving your costs. Then you can then start overlaying health data on top of it and demographic data.”

Reward professionals should be critical friends

Honest conversations about pay are crucial given the huge pressures on pay levels across sectors. 

In a panel discussion about managing and mitigating the increasing costs of new pay legislation and regulatory change, speakers highlighted the importance of being open about communicating transparently organisations’ pay philosophy and methodology to employees.
 
This also means acting as a “critical friend” in discussions about pay levels. 

Ben Southworth,  reward director of Mischon de Reya, said: “Senior reward leaders need to build relationships with other leaders in the organisation to ensure things are communicated properly.
 
Relationship-building is also crucial as the profile of reward within organisations grows. 

“There’s a bigger focus on reward and justifying our spend,” Natalie Bertelson- Macey, head of pay and reward and McCarthy Stone, said, “The senior executives are really interested in it now, because it’s such a huge cost to the business.”

Retirement worries are harming productivity  

For more than one in five of the 2,000 people surveyed by Hymans Robertson Personal Wealth for its Employee Financial Stress Index, retirement worries were having an impact on their wellbeing and productivity at work, and their number one ask of their employers is for financial wellbeing support.
 
“Financial stress is a financial risk for businesses,” said James Smith, client director at Hymans Robertson Personal Wealth. “So we wanted a way to measure this through time and track how people’s financial stress is impacting them.”
 
The company asked 2,000 people 25 questions about their financial wellbeing and how it impacted their work. 

Women were found to be 1.4 times more financially stressed than men, with Northern Ireland the most financially-distressed region of the UK, and Generation X employees the most financially stressed age group.
 
The support employees want differs across generations, but includes short-term savings support, emergency financial assistance and discounts schemes. 

Smith recommended providing meaningful guidance, discounts schemes and savings support for employees.

He added: “What should you do? Understand the workforce and their desire for support.” 

Live and work with purpose

The absolutely fabulous Dame Joanna Lumley closed this year’s Congress with her insights and advice into life and work.

She said: “I try to do my best every day. All we've got every day is one day in our lives, all we've got is one day. So that's the only thing you've got to get right.”