As we enter open enrollment season, employers are now communicating changes to their sponsored benefit programs for 2020, and employees are evaluating the benefit options presented. This enrollment season, employers that offer family-building benefits have the most to gain as these benefits help attract talent, support employees, decrease health care costs, show the company's values and enable a more productive work environment.

1. Attract and retain top talent 

Infertility impacts 1 in 8 couples and, over the past decade, there have been dramatic shifts in the path to parenthood. Millennials are delaying family building to focus on education and careers which take them beyond their most fertile years. According to a Mercer study, 68 percent of millennials take coverage for fertility preservation (egg, sperm, and embryo freezing) and infertility coverage into consideration when choosing an employer. The growing number of single people and same-sex couples planning families signals the need for surrogacy or adoption. With 63 percent of LGBTQ millennials aged 18-35 considering expanding their families by becoming parents for the first time, or by having more children, employers simply cannot ignore the fact that family-building benefits are critical to the health of the company and that they need to offer attractive, robust family-building benefit plans. 

2. Supporting employee life needs leads to employee loyalty

Due to social and cultural shifts, Pew research shows that women are having their first child much later in life. Delaying child-bearing drives the need for assisted reproductive services when they are ready to build their families, and employers are supporting these needs by offering fertility and family-building benefits.  According to RESOLVE, the National Fertility Association, employees have strong, positive feelings toward employers that offer coverage for fertility treatment.  The Family Builder Workplace Index for 2019-2020 shows that  61 percent of employees are more loyal when their employer offers family-building benefits, and that 88 percent of women who had IVF treatment covered by their employer in 2017, returned to work with that employer after maternity leave. 

3. Health care savings for the employer and increased value for employees

Employers using a managed fertility benefit solution improve outcomes, employee satisfaction and cost savings. Today's leading managed fertility benefit programs increase the likelihood of a healthy singleton pregnancy while decreasing pharmacy, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and other health care-related costs. The high costs associated with multiple gestations (triplets) can be upwards of $400,000, while NICU costs for twins can run over $80,000. These costs can be avoided with a healthy, full-term singleton baby, by utilizing medical protocols like eSET (elective single embryo transfer). Through eSET best practices, some organizations see decreases in high order multiple gestations of up to 85.4 percent.

4. Diversity in the workplace

Offering an inclusive family-building benefit, one that includes adoption and surrogacy solutions, makes a cultural statement on your client's company value for diversity in the workplace.  A recent study by the Family Equality Council shows that 77 percent of LGBTQ+ millennials (ages 18-35) are already parents or are considering having children, a 44 percent increase over previous generations. Millennials actively discriminate among companies who do not offer inclusive benefits, and rather gravitate to companies with inclusive benefits like egg freezing, adoption, surrogacy, as well as egg and sperm donation.  Millennials believe that a benefit offered to one employee must be offered to all employees.  

5. A focused and productive workforce

Fertility treatments are both expensive and unpredictable; they may not succeed the first time and this can place financial stress on the employee. The average U.S. household earns $51,000 in pre-tax income and the average cost of IVF treatment can range from $22,000–$30,000 (depending on the city of treatment, medications used and testing required). Thus, fertility coverage makes a real and life-changing difference for those who need treatment.

In addition to alleviating financial stress by offering fertility coverage, a managed fertility benefit gives employees access to a nurse care manager that offers clinical guidance and oversight throughout their entire family-building journey, as well as access to behavioral health support if needed. Employees that are supported are less stressed, less distracted at work, and therefore more productive.

As employees shop for new benefits this open enrollment season, employers have an enormous opportunity to not only meet the needs of the discerning Millennial generation, but to step up and offer highly competitive benefit packages that show that the company cares.

Peter N. Nieves is the Chief Commercial Officer at WINFertility.