How to evidence return on value and return on investment for health benefits
With budgets and belts tightening across the board, financial decision makers are increasingly looking for hard-and-fast numbers. Things like staff satisfaction and engagement, while a solid starting point, are not always the full picture – more can be done to analyse or link directly to performance, productivity, or pounds and pence profit and loss.
REBA’s Benefits Design Research (2025) found that fewer than one in five (18%) of respondents use return-on-investment modelling to help gain approval for change.
While employee scores for mental and physical wellbeing were rated as important or very important to 84% of respondents, less than one-third (30%) had access to that sort of data.
And more than one in 10 (13%) had health benefit proposals partially declined due to lack of data - with 2% admitting they had health proposals fully rejected.
So what can be done to create evidence for return on both investment and value?
1. Change how sickness absence data is collected and recorded
Unlike engagement and productivity, sickness absence data can be linked to monetary value. For instance, the hourly rate of each employee for each day, the loss of work/output for each day, and the cost of appropriate cover in terms of overtime or temporary staff.
But many organisations are not collecting their sickness data in a consistent way. Some will track the length of absence and even type of absence, but far fewer are recording things like time away and hours lost for medical appointments, time away for caring emergencies (whether children or older relatives), and return to work adjustments or support.
All of that provides impact evidence that can translate into money, but also builds a wider picture of the potential value of health benefits - particularly early intervention services like virtual GPs or physiotherapy.
Businesses should be asking themselves how much quicker their people could get the advice and support they need through workplace benefits in comparison to the NHS in their areas.
2. Start to measure risk, not just impact
Clearly sickness absence is only a very broad-stroke measure for the true value of health benefits. What HR teams really need to be able to demonstrate is future risk. What are the key health issues facing your workforce over the next five years, and what would that mean for your organisation?
This involves properly understanding your workforce demographics, and identifying issues, whether that’s an ageing workforce, sedentary lifestyles, a high percentage of people in physical/manual roles - or even the need to recruit heavily in a small pool or competitive market (where health benefits could give you an edge).
Collecting that data in a usable, robust form, for instance through employee surveys and how they use their current benefits, is essential in building a future business case leaders will listen to.
3. Benchmark usage and drive take-up of services
In an ideal world, what you want to present to the board is a graph that shows a straight correlation between your health benefits investment, and things like improved sickness absence, engagement, and productivity.
You will only be able to do so if people are making use of the benefits you provide.
When it comes to health benefits, it’s not always a case of ‘build it and they will come’ – even if they are something staff have voted for and said they want.
For some organisations, barriers to use might include confusion from overlapping services, opt-ins and outs, and multiple EAPs from different providers. Tackling that might look like a streamlining exercise, or clearer call-to-action communications.
Others might struggle with a workforce that’s remote, on the road or on site, who don’t engage as much with online communications or digital services, and might need face-to-face training and physical collateral about the benefit services available to them.
Whatever the barriers are, understanding usage and finding ways to drive it up are vital in building a convincing narrative.
4. Invest in your analytics
Changing how, when and what data you collect has to involve growing your people-analytics capacity.
That might mean investing in technology to help capture, analyse and present people-data, or developing new indicators and measures that are robust and trustworthy, and can show your progress over time.
It could also include investing in staff training to support the management of data and insights, or borrowing analytics professionals from elsewhere in your organisation.
5. Use line managers effectively
Line managers are at the front line of your health and wellbeing strategy. They are the ones dealing with mental and physical health issues within their teams, filling in absence forms, managing returns to work, and signposting to your policies, benefits, and other health resources.
Yet according to Investors in People, 82% of line managers don’t ever receive any formal training. That of course includes training around health and wellbeing.
Organisations should consider a training programme for line managers that includes elements of mental health first-aid, understanding your absence, emergency and compassionate leave policies (and how to apply them), and knowing your benefits in detail - so they are ready and able to connect people with the right services right when they’re needed.
