In today’s hiring landscape, employers are moving beyondtraditional health and retirement benefits to embrace uniqueincentives that attract top talent. In particular, employers arehyper-focused on unique benefits that attract the millennial generation, which has surpassedGeneration X as the largest age group in the workforce. While mostemployers and HR professionals have likely read countless articlesabout empowering millennial employees in the workplace, it cannotbe denied that this generation faces a much different work/life landscape than those that came beforethem.

Since traditional benefits no longer serve most of the workforceas they once did, continued conversation is necessary to identifynew employer strategies, including the implementation of unusualbenefits that address millennials’ specific needs and challenges.These include the flexibility to allow employees to work where and when they want, personalized wellnessprograms that incorporate gamification and recognition for goalsmet, mental health resources for employees and their families,sabbaticals that encourage personal growth and exploration, and more. Suchexamples not only meet the unique needs of millennial employees,but they also help organizations foster an authentic and empatheticworkplace culture.

Rethinking traditional benefits to address employeestress

One of the main goals employers have for their workplacebenefits is to reduce employee stress. Personal stressors can leadto decreased workforce productivity, absenteeism, andturnover—which ultimately take a negative toll on overall officeculture. Reducing stress is particularly critical for millennialemployees, as this generation reports higher stress levels than any other age group. Millennials arealso more likely than other generations to say their stress has avery strong impact on their physical and mental health.

Naively, the benefits world has always held firm to the beliefthat stress derives from the effect of a problem, rather than thecause of a problem. For example, instead of trying to providehealth and wellness tools to an unhealthy person, a better strategyis to ask why the person faces health challenges to beginwith. Slowly, employers are coming to realize that the only way tosolve the effect of stress is by implementing unique benefits thataddress the underlying cause. Only when employers understand wheretheir employees’ stress is coming from, will they be able to createprograms to help their teams avoid those stressors in the firstplace.

Considering the main cause of millennial stress: theirfinances

Arguably the biggest cause of stress for young adults is money.A 2017 Workplace Benefits Report states that 67 percent ofemployees in this age group say financial stress impacts theirability to focus and be productive at work, and 68 percent saidthat financial stress takes a negative toll on their physicalhealth as well. Many are burdened by student loan debt but hold anentry level job for mediocre pay. Older millennials are balancingtheir long-term educational debt with the cost of raising a youngfamily, saving for a wedding, or buying their first home.

In the past, young employees could seek financial advice from aconfidant or an older family member about retirement, loans, andbills, but as technology has advanced, financial terms are nolonger so simplistic. In fact, millennials and Gen X employees arewithdrawing more money from retirement plans than prior years,according to a recent PWC employee wellness survey. Many of these withdrawals are theresult of unexpected expenses. Therefore, it is crucial foremployers to consider their employees’ financial knowledge andstress levels by providing benefits beyond traditional retirementplans and health and wellness programs. These solutions shouldempower financially-stressed employees through personalizededucation to put them more in control of their spending.

Employers should also seek unique benefit solutions that caneasily isolate segments of their workforce to deliver the rightkind of communication to the right person. This capability allowsemployers to help millennial workers, for example, crush studentloan repayments, while also meeting the needs of their Gen X andBaby Boomer employees.

By addressing individual employee financial stressors withaccess to personalized and relevant content, as well asprofessionals that can help employees get a handle on theunderlying causes of their stress, employers can take proactivesteps in creating a culture of holistic employee wellness.

Unique benefits impact company culture

Unique benefits, such as financial wellness, do not only helpattract millennial talent and address their stressors. They arealso important because the way an organization structures itsbenefits, especially its unique benefits, ultimately determines thetype of company culture a workplace has.

As organizations begin to think outside-of-the-box aboutbenefits that help employees manage stress, employers will findthat employees feel more comfortable at work. Increased workplacecomfort also inspires a greater sense of employee loyalty andworkplace satisfaction.

This idea is exemplified in Businessolver’s 2017Workplace Empathy Monitor survey. Nearly all of employees (95percent) believe that showing empathy is an important way toadvance employee retention, and two-thirds of respondents believedemployers can best express empathy through benefits packages. It’sno surprise that the benefits employees pointed to as opportunitiesto demonstrate employer empathy were directly related to theirstressors. In fact, ninety percent of respondents agreed financialwell-being and student loan debt repayment benefits expressemployer empathy, as well as other unique perks such as flexiblework hours and location, paid maternity and paternity leave, andfamily benefits.

In our current immensely competitive hiring landscape, employersare searching for new ways to attract high-caliber talent andretain existing staff. Since culture is what is truly attractingmillennials to the workplace, unique benefits now play a key rolein how an organization can create the culture it desires. Rememberthat if a company doesn’t establish and cultivate its culture, theculture will set itself.

Organizations that take the time to identify key stressors inthe lives of their employees, and offer unique benefits that helpease those challenges, are making great strides in ensuring apositive company culture that promotes employee happiness andloyalty.