Incentives, well-being, career/development/training and recognition programs are among the least understood benefits—leading employees not to appreciate their value. (Image: Shutterstock)

Employees are losing ground when it comes to understanding their workplace benefits—in fact, while in 2015 77 percent said they understood them, that's now fallen to just 50 percent.

That's not good news for employers, says a new report from Alight Solutions, since it affects how employees perceive the value they're getting from their bosses. And that can cause problems when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent, since if they don't feel they and their families are getting top value, they'll look elsewhere.

Related: Employee benefit trends to watch in 2019

In fact, says the report, “overall employee experience is not meeting expectations nor is the experience perceived as particularly productive or inspiring.” That's definitely weighing on retention, since 54 percent are now either passively or actively considering finding a new job—up four points from 2017.

According to the report, earlier research finds that incentives, well-being, career/development/training and recognition programs are the least understood—leading employees not to appreciate their value.

So what can employers do? Alight suggests “strong and concise benefits programs,” since employees who feel employer rewards do meet their needs are seven times more likely to be engaged than employees who don't.

(Source: Alight)

In addition, flexibility is a must—with 51 percent of employees saying they wouldn't even consider a job with less flexibility than their current role. And it takes a lot of money to make them change their minds; the report says that on average, those who might be willing to move to a less flexible job would want a pay raise of at least 31 percent to make up for the flexibility loss.

Then there's communication—with more than half of workers saying that effective communication (58 percent) and collaboration (57 percent) should be common practice at any employer. If employees aren't understanding their benefits, that's obviously not the case.

Finally, technology and HR platforms need to be efficient, particularly since employees are five times more engaged when they feel HR systems and platforms are easy to use, and they are six times more engaged when those systems and platforms are effective.