#BizTrends2026 | EEB's Lushan Sundram: Steering the future through tailored employee benefits
Benefits have always been positioned as a sign of organisational care, but too often they fail to deliver on that promise. The future demands a different approach, one that is insight driven and responsive to the lived realities of employees. As organisations prepare for 2026 and beyond, the challenge is not simply to update benefits, but to rethink them entirely.
Technology, AI and the shift to individual value
Employees increasingly view benefits as part of a holistic value exchange with their employer. In a workplace culture where people expect to be recognised as individuals, blanket benefit designs no longer suffice.
The key question employees will ask is: “Do these benefits see me, or am I just another category?”
Technology is reshaping benefit design not because it’s new, but because it unlocks deeper insight. Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible to identify patterns, understand utilisation, and anticipate needs without compromising privacy. With this intelligence, employers can build benefits around actual employee realities rather than outdated assumptions.
Flexible, modular benefit packages will become the norm, allowing employees to choose options aligned with their households, health needs and financial circumstances. But flexibility does not mean overwhelming choice. The future lies in curated benefit baskets that provide clarity, relevance, and ease.
In the next era, complexity in benefit communication becomes unacceptable. If employees cannot understand their benefits, the issue is not literacy, its design. Transparent language and clear interpretation will become baseline expectations.
Why data must lead benefit strategy
While HR has made significant progress, many benefit decisions still resemble a yearly checklist: renew medical aid; rebroke group life cover; maintain status quo. Limited access to meaningful data forces employers into reactive strategies, adjusting benefits after they’ve affected absenteeism, well-being, or retention.
Data and analytics change this dynamic. They help organisations identify which benefits employees actually value, which remain unused, where financial strain creates risk, and what patterns drive disengagement.
The misconception that data-driven design is “high effort and low reward” hasn’t helped, but in reality, accessible tools already exist to deliver this insight efficiently. When employers use data effectively, benefit budgets begin to drive measurable outcomes: better engagement, improved uptake, and stronger employee loyalty.
Benefits as a strategic lever for engagement, retention and productivity
Low benefit engagement is not an employee problem; it’s a relevance problem. When benefits don’t match real needs, employees disengage, and the organisation loses a powerful retention tool. The solution lies in benefits that provide day-to-day value, not only support in times of crisis.
Employees should feel excited about their benefits, not burdened by them. When benefits feel personal, supportive, and accessible, they strengthen belonging – and belonging is not a “soft” outcome. It is a critical driver of productivity, performance, and long-term commitment.
Socio-economic realities in South Africa make this even more urgent. Rising healthcare inflation and escalating medical scheme costs have pushed many employees into entry-level plans that don’t meet their everyday needs. Workers, especially in lower- to middle-income brackets, are increasingly evaluating alternative options that prioritise affordability and daily utility.
With diverse income levels, differing literacy rates, and varied household structures, a one-size-fits-all benefit model is no longer viable. Employers must design benefits at a more granular level, with an understanding of what their workforce truly faces.
Why partnering with expert providers matters
Modern benefit providers cannot simply “place a product” or deliver a generic blanket solution. They must function as an extension of the employer, a consultative partner who understands the socioeconomic dynamics of the workforce and can translate this into design and effective management.
The best partners need to be able to counsel employees directly, build trust and reduce HR pressure. They need to translate insights into action, ensuring the employer implements benefits that actually solve problems – and they need to be able to challenge outdated benefit structures, rather than reinforce them.
A powerful example is a business where low-income employees were forced to join medical aid they could not afford and did not use. They faced co-payments they couldn’t manage, and both disengagement and resentment slowly grew. Retention suffered and only once the employer understood the pain points did, they shift to a low-cost, high utility option. Contribution costs decreased, out-of-pocket expenses reduced, and retention not just stabilised, but improved. That is the power of aligning benefits with reality.
The future of benefits won’t be shaped by tradition, but by insight. When employers design benefits based on what employees actually need – supported by data, technology, and expert guidance, they unlock a workforce that is empowered, engaged, and ready to thrive in the intelligent workplaces of tomorrow.
