Employee benefits play a key role in attracting, motivating and retaining talent, so it's understandable employers want their workers to make the most of the benefits they're offered. By gaining greater understanding of worker attitudes toward benefits — and the underlying drivers of satisfaction — companies can better harness the power of their benefits to increase worker engagement and ultimately productivity. This is particularly important this time of year as we gear up for enrollment season.

Lessons learned

Last fall, The Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America launched the Guardian Workplace Benefits Study, designed to measure the perceived value of employee benefits on today's working Americans. The study introduced a Benefits Value Index that revealed American workers, on average, have a score of 6.8 (based on a scale of 1 to 10), suggesting that while today's American workers value their benefits, there's significant room for improvement.