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Key Takeaways
ARTICLE | 3 Questions That Will Determine How The 2024 Elections Impact Employer-Sponsored Healthcare
The 2024 elections are now in the books, and while votes are still being counted and will continue being counted for the next week or two at least, there are only a few handfuls of races at this point where there remains much uncertainty about the outcome.
As of this writing, control of the US House of Representatives has yet to be officially called, but in order to take the majority Democrats would essentially need to flip 6 of 8 swing districts that have yet to announce winners, all of which are seats held by Republicans currently, so it’s a tall order for Dems to say the least.
Given these odds and given that Donald Trump and a majority of Senate Republicans have already decisively won their respective elections, it is very likely the case that Republicans will soon control just about all the levers of power in the federal government, including a supermajority of Republican appointees on the Supreme Court.
Although the Senate majority will not be filibuster-proof, which is the one check on power that Democratic politicians in the federal government will maintain over the next 2 years, it’s fair to say that Republicans have a pretty clear path for the foreseeable future to enact whatever policies they choose.
With that in mind, we wanted to take a look at the 3 most significant open questions concerning how the incoming GOP majority will govern with respect to the US healthcare system - specifically in terms of how such changes may impact employer-sponsored health insurance - in order to shine some light on where we may be heading in the coming term.
One of the biggest unanswered questions at the moment with the greatest potential to impact employer-sponsored healthcare is whether or not the GOP will attempt again to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and if so, what if anything will they replace it with?
Of all the potential changes a future Trump administration and Republican Congress/Judiciary might make/allow, repealing the ACA may have the most far-reaching and significant implications from an employer’s perspective.
For employers, repeal of the ACA as-is would mean not only the elimination of penalties for failing to offer minimum-standard-meeting health insurance to employees (or possibly the reduction of those penalties in the event of repeal and replace), repeal of the ACA would also remove/reduce the minimum standards that those policies must meet in order to be brought to market in the first place.
From a practical standpoint, the elimination or reduced efficacy of the exchange system will likely have some major repercussions as well, as will ending coverage protection for people with pre-existing conditions, both of which will increase the perceived value of strong employer-sponsored benefit packages and can support talent attraction and retention efforts.
There are also a number of somewhat less significant potential outcomes that could be expected in the wake of ACA repeal and are still impactful enough to be worth noting, including reduced administrative requirements/costs and reduced or eliminated wellness program subsidies.
The downsides to eliminating everything from subsidies to preexisting condition coverage protections and the exchanges themselves will be substantial, however, given that the number of uninsured people would climb significantly in each case and the costs resulting from their lack of preventative care and emergency room dependence will ultimately make its way to commercial group plans and employer bottom lines.
To be clear, it is not at all a foregone conclusion that the GOP will use their control of government to repeal the ACA within the next couple of years.
For one, the ACA was only about 7 years old the last time that the GOP was in power and initially attempted to repeal it, and it’s been about 7 years since then during which time ACA provisions and expectations have become all the more entrenched within our healthcare system.
Further, while the outspoken calls for repeal of the ACA from both Republican leadership and Republican rank-and-file alike have never gone away entirely, they have become much quieter in recent years, perhaps partly in response to the pandemic and the attention it drew to both public and personal health matters.
There is certainly a degree of disagreement within the Republican party about the best path forward in terms of improving the US healthcare system, especially as it relates to the ACA, and in fact many individual Republican politicians have had different views on these matters at different times themselves, adding additional complication to the task of anticipating how it will play out when power transfers in the new year.
In a previous piece, we covered some of President-elect Donald Trump’s positions on various healthcare-related issues including the ACA as outlined by the actions he took during his previous administration as well as statements he made on the topic at the time and since.
Early in his first term, for example, Trump supported the attempted repeal of the ACA, but it is not at all certain that he will support doing so again given competing priorities and given that the healthcare exchanges and ACA infrastructure are further established and ingrained in our healthcare system now than when repeal last failed.
In fact, in a statement from March of this year, Trump said that he was not running to ‘terminate’ the ACA and instead wanted to improve it and make it less expensive, although he did not supply further detail as to how these goals would be accomplished.
During his first term, Trump did implement some ACA cost-saving measures such as allowing enhanced ACA direct enrollment through online brokers and reducing funding for outreach and enrollment assistance, but he also weakened individual mandate enforcement, resulting in reduced revenue to offset the costs of the program.
If cost-cutting is the goal and if they revive the strategy of reshaping the ACA via relatively small changes as opposed to a one-fell-swoop overhaul/repeal, it’s a good bet that the premium tax credits through the exchanges will not be renewed when they expire in 2025, for one.
Exempting employers from ACA contraception coverage requirements is another action the previous Trump administration took and the future Trump administration is likely to revisit, as is reinstating short-term non-ACA-compliant insurance options, as well.
Of course, Trump isn’t the only Republican leader who has offered somewhat mixed messages with regard to the future of the ACA.
After declaring ‘no Obamacare’ at a rally in Pennsylvania, when reports interpreted this statement as an indication of his intent to repeal the ACA, Johnson clarified that is not what he said.
Trump’s running mate and soon-to-be Vice President JD Vance, on the other hand, has signaled more direct support for the ACA, even telling an anecdote at the vice presidential debate about how his mother bought health insurance via Obamacare.
That said, Vance has also floated proposals for plans that undermine and run counter to the ACA, like allowing health insurers to stratify their groups which would reduce premium expenses for younger and healthier people but would cause them to increase significantly for older people and people with pre-existing conditions.
Perhaps the biggest question mark about the future of the ACA involves the incoming Senate Majority leader. With Mitch McConnell set to step down as top Republican in the Senate, however, and with no obvious successor at the moment, there is no clear answer about how the ACA will be approached by the leader of the House of Congress that is likely to play the most significant role in determining the future of the ACA.
One fairly consistent theme across much of the ideology expressed by Republicans has been giving more power to states in making policy decisions in many situations.
In Trump’s first term, we saw this transfer of power manifest via Medicaid block grants and allowing states to mandate work requirements, for example, and has reemerged in Trump’s promises for his second term as well, exemplified by the stated plan to dismantle the Department of Education and allow each state to manage its internal public education without much federal assistance or oversight.
As laws and regulations become decentralized, however, keeping up with compliance can become more cumbersome, especially for large employers operating in multiple states, and that problem gets amplified as the variance in rules between states grows over time.
Furthermore, differences in policy from one state to another can have significant effects on attracting and retaining talent in some areas of the country, which can be a benefit to attraction and retention efforts in cases such as low/no income tax states, but state-level policy can be a detriment to talent attraction and attention when those policies are contentious and considered off-putting to various groups of potential candidates, especially when it comes to health issues.
There are more than a few such contentious state health-related policy considerations that can affect candidate perception of a potential relocation site including issues ranging from disability accommodations to gender-affirming care access and vaccine mandates, but there is no more contentious now-state-level healthcare issue than abortion, which has significant implications for employers not only with regard to talent recruitment but also family planning as it relates to business operational efficiency.
While some Republican leaders have called for a national abortion ban over the last couple of years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Trump has repeatedly stated that he favors leaving abortion up to the states and that he will not sign a national abortion ban.
Speaker Johnson, however, appears less opposed to a national abortion ban, but he recently stated that he thinks it would be too soon to introduce such a ban within the next year without having first built political consensus for such a measure.
Perhaps the biggest question marks surrounding these statements for both supporters and opponents of abortion rights, however, is whether or not the statements refer exclusively to an outright ban or if they also encompass achieving the same or similar results via other means, such as banning abortion drug mifepristone, enacting fetal personhood, and/or legislating additional abortion restrictions that don’t constitute a total national ban.
Even in the event of additional national abortion restrictions of some kind, however, it’s important to keep in mind that those restrictions are likely to set a minimum standard that states can then go beyond in terms of implementing additional restrictions if they elect to do so.
As a result, both the perception and the reality of abortion access and the correlated access to other reproductive healthcare may continue to grow as factors influencing candidates’ willingness to work in certain locations.
Further, a piecemeal approach to abortion and reproductive healthcare access across states will make issues involving contraception access all the more relevant, especially in places with more limited abortion access.
As already noted, Trump exempted employers from complying with ACA contraception requirements based on moral and religious grounds, which is a policy that seems likely to be reinstated.
That policy, however, may make certain aspects of family planning considerably more complicated for a large number of employees, which in turn may negatively impact employers not only by shrinking the talent pool of labor willing to work for some employers in the first place but also by reducing the potential availability of the labor that is accessible to them as a result of employees having less control over if and when they have children.
In attempting to reform the healthcare system absent successfully repealing ACA, the first Trump administration turned much of its attention to addressing the rapidly rising costs of care.
Some of those cost-saving measures that were implemented were systemic reforms that share wide bi-partisan support such as efforts to lower prescription drug prices, increase cost transparency, and improve provider billing practices, all of which are goals that the Biden administration has pursued in the interim as well, so there shouldn’t be a much of a shift on these fronts when Trump retakes office.
The Biden administration, however, did not continue some other measures related to privatization and consolidation that the first Trump administration implemented with an aim to reduce healthcare expenses, for example promoting Medicare Advantage at the expense of Medicaid and showing a greater willingness to greenlight mergers and acquisitions across the healthcare business spectrum.
A second Trump administration is expected to continue its support for both Medicare Advantage and a robust M&A environment in the healthcare space, which will likely be a benefit to companies that are able to join forces and diversify via merger, but the ultimate impact on costs for employer-sponsored plans from these consolidations remains to be seen.
As healthcare and healthcare-adjacent companies consolidate, grow, and absorb accounts and market share over the next couple of years, employers would be wise to stay proactive in working with their insurance brokers and consultants to monitor how the shifting landscape may impact coverage going forward as policies change hands and terms and conditions evolve.
There are several reasons that there are still major questions about how the GOP will approach healthcare despite the fact that the president-elect has previously held office and just completed a years-long campaign that included major media interviews, two debates, and quite a few political rallies.
In terms of historical data, we of course know what Trump did the last time he was president when he also happened to start the term with majority support in both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, but that evidence of action is somewhat incomplete given how much time and resources the GOP invested in repealing the ACA only to come up a few votes short.
After unsuccessfully repealing and replacing the ACA, many of the other healthcare-related policy changes enacted in Trump’s first term felt more like afterthoughts than a fully formed representation of Republican healthcare goals at the time, and as noted above, full repeal of the ACA seems less likely now than it did then.
As for why we don’t have better information about Trump and the GOP’s healthcare plans going forward, the fault largely lies with the voters in a sense. Since election polling this cycle consistently revealed that healthcare was not one of the most pressing issues on voters’ minds, candidates up and down the ticket on both sides of the aisle largely neglected the topic on the campaign trail, and the media did the same for the same reason.
It’s most likely not the case, however, that healthcare became less of a priority to voters than it has been over the last 20 years, especially still living in the aftermath of a recent global pandemic. It’s probable that other issues like the economy, immigration, and abortion have become more urgent in recent years in a lot of voters’ minds and they simply jumped to the front of the line.
Regardless of why we know relatively little about the GOP’s healthcare priorities, assuming that Republicans do ultimately hold onto the House of Representatives when the final vote tally is complete, at this point it shouldn’t take long for those priorities to become clear.
Although their majorities will be slim in Congress, Republicans and Republicans alone are likely to be setting the agenda in a matter of months, and we’ll be back to weigh in with our take as those plans come into focus.
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Competing for Talent in a Constrained Market
The labor market remains highly competitive, particularly for skilled and high-performing roles. Despite some macroeconomic cooling, the structural shortage of qualified talent persists: nearly three-quarters of employers continue to report difficulty filling key positions. At the same time, employee expectations have evolved — flexibility, security, and well-being now weigh as heavily as base compensation in determining employer preference.
For most organizations, benefits represent one of the largest investments in the total rewards portfolio. Yet in practice, those investments are often under-leveraged in the recruiting process. Health coverage, retirement plans, paid time off, and wellness programs frequently appear as a brief bullet point in job descriptions or are mentioned only when an offer is extended. By that stage, the opportunity to differentiate has largely passed.
Mployer’s recent survey of more than 700 companies across 17 industries found that employers who clearly communicate the value of their benefits — and substantiate that value through credible data or recognition — are nine times more likely to be selected by candidates and to convert accepted offers. Transparency and validation drive both higher-quality applicant flow and stronger offer acceptance rates.
Transparency Converts Interest Into Action
In a competitive market, candidates are no longer applying indiscriminately. They evaluate prospective employers through publicly available information, reviews, and visible signals of value. When benefit information is vague, candidates interpret that as a risk. “Competitive benefits” have become shorthand for “average,” and uncertainty creates hesitation.
Conversely, when an organization provides a clear, quantified, and credible overview of its benefits, the dynamic changes immediately. Candidates are more willing to engage early, stay active through the interview process, and make faster, more confident decisions.
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The Missed Opportunity: The Awkward Offer Conversation
In many recruiting processes today, the discussion around benefits occurs only after a verbal or written offer is made. The exchange is familiar: the candidate receives the offer, reviews the salary, and then pauses at the benefits section — uncertain whether what’s being offered is “good” or “below market.”
Recruiters often find themselves attempting to explain why the plan is competitive, citing anecdotal points about employer contributions or coverage levels. But without comparative data, the explanation sounds defensive, not differentiating. The candidate may nod politely but remain unconvinced — or worse, use the ambiguity to negotiate or delay.
At that stage, the opportunity to use benefits as a selling point has already been lost. The employer is reacting rather than leading.
In contrast, organizations that proactively communicate the strength of their benefits — in quantitative and comparative terms — enter offer discussions from a position of confidence. The candidate already understands the total value being provided and perceives the offer as comprehensive, not partial.
This is the distinction between defending your benefits and leveraging them. One undermines momentum; the other accelerates decisions.
Making Benefits a Strategic Differentiator
Leading employers are now approaching benefits communication as a core component of their talent strategy — not an HR formality. Several best practices have emerged:
These practices shorten time-to-hire, increase offer acceptance rates, and strengthen employer brand equity in measurable ways.
From Hidden Cost to Competitive Advantage
For many organizations, benefits are treated primarily as a cost center — a compliance requirement and a necessary expense. In reality, they are one of the most powerful levers available for talent attraction and retention.
When the value of those benefits is communicated with clarity, evidence, and confidence, the perception shifts. The benefits package becomes part of the employer’s market narrative — a tangible signal of how the company invests in its people.
In a tight labor market, that clarity doesn’t just help you attract candidates; it helps you close them.
How Mployer Enables Employers to Compete
Mployer helps organizations turn their benefits into a verified strategic advantage. We independently evaluate and rate employee benefit plans, comparing them across thousands of employers nationwide.
Participating organizations receive a clear assessment of how their benefits stack up against peers, along with recognition materials and benchmarking insights that can be shared directly with candidates. These assets — digital badges, comparison visuals, and concise summaries — give recruiting teams the ability to communicate benefit value credibly and consistently.
Employers across the country are already using Mployer’s data-driven validation to increase applicant volume, improve offer acceptance rates, and reinforce their reputation as employers of choice.
If you’d like to see how your benefits compare, we offer a free initial benchmark report to qualified employers. Join thousands of organizations already leveraging independent proof to strengthen their talent strategy — and move from explaining your benefits to winning with them.
In today’s hyper-competitive labor market, the fight for high-end talent has become a defining business challenge. Organizations invest significant resources into hiring and developing high- performing employees—only to lose them to competitors offering slightly higher pay or better benefits. The cost of voluntary turnover is not only financial; it disrupts operations, damages customer relationships, and erodes company culture.This white paper explores how offering market-competitive benefits—and communicating them effectively—dramatically reduces voluntary turnover. Backed by Mployer’s proprietary benchmarking and benefit rating data, we’ll show how employers that promote their benefits will experience on average 27% lower voluntary turnover each year and potentially up to 51% lower annual turnover compared to peers.
The Cost of Losing Great Talent
Every HR leader and CFO understands the financial cost of turnover—but few quantify its full scope. When an employee leaves voluntarily, costs include:
• Recruiting and onboarding new talent (often 30–50% of annual salary)
• Lost productivity during ramp-up and training
• Knowledge drain, as institutional know-how walks out the door
• Team disruption and morale impacts
• Customer relationship risks when account-facing employees depart
For specialized or customer-integrated roles, this loss compounds. A trained employee with both technical knowledge and deep integration into your teams and clients is a valuable asset—one not easily replaced. Studies show total turnover costs can exceed 1.5x–2x the employee’s annual salary for mid-level positions.
The Talent War: Competing Beyond Compensation
Across industries, the labor market remains tight. Wage competition has intensified, especially in sectors where every dollar per hour matters—manufacturing, wholesale trade, and financial services among them. Employees are increasingly willing to move for small pay increases, unless they clearly understand the total value of their benefits package.This is where benefit perception and communication become critical. When employees can see and understand the full value of what you provide—healthcare coverage, retirement matching, paid leave, mental health support—they’re less likely to be swayed by modest salary increases elsewhere. In short, benefits visibility equals retention power.
The Data: Better Benefits, Better Retention
Mployer Advisor’s analysis found that companies with highly rated benefits and effective benefits communication experience an average of 27% lower voluntary turnover than their peers. That’s a significant impact—one that directly translates into stronger productivity, reduced recruiting costs, and better workforce stability.How We Measured It: To understand how benefits quality and communication influence retention, Mployer Advisor conducted a cross-industry analysis using a blended methodology:
• Sample Group: Thousands of U.S. employers across key industries were evaluated, each with at least 50 full-time employees.
• Benefit Quality Scoring: Companies were benchmarked using Mployer’s proprietary benefit rating system, which integrates multiple data sources—including public ratings, plan benchmarking data, and employee feedback metrics.
• Communication Effectiveness: We measured not just the quality of benefits offered, but how clearly and frequently those benefits were communicated to employees through internal channels, digital materials, and recognition programs.
• Turnover Tracking: Over a 12-month period, we compared voluntary turnover rates among high-rated employers versus industry averages, focusing on trained, professional employees who had completed at least one year of tenure.The outcome was consistent and striking across every major sector: employers who both provide strong benefits and communicate them effectively retain significantly more of their trained workforce.
What this means in Practice - Let's put these numbers into context:
• Example 1: Mid-Sized Manufacturing Firm (200 Employees) Suppose a manufacturing company employs 200 workers with an annual average salary of $60,000 and a typical voluntary turnover rate of 20%. That’s 40 employees leaving each year. Replacing and retraining them at a conservative cost of 1.5× salary would total $3.6 million annually. With improved benefits communication and recognition, this firm could reduce its turnover by 44%—down to 22 separations a year—saving over $1.6 million annually in direct and indirect costs.
• Example 2: Growth-Stage Tech Company (50 Employees) A 50-person software firm might see a 25% voluntary turnover rate in a competitive labor market. Replacing those 12–13 employees could cost roughly $25,000 each in lost productivity and recruiting, totaling $300,000 per year. By improving benefits visibility and achieving results similar to the 27% national average reduction, the company could retain an additional 3–4 key employees annually—saving $75,000–$100,000 and preserving critical institutional knowledge.
The data and the dollars tell the same story: when employees both receive and recognize valuable benefits, they stay longer. Employers who treat benefits as a strategic investment—not just a line-item cost—achieve stronger retention, higher engagement, and measurable savings year over year.
Why Communication Matters as Much as the Benefits Themselves
Even the most generous benefits package fails to deliver ROI if employees don’t fully understand it. HR leaders often underestimate how little employees know about their coverage and perks. A recent survey found that:
• 46% of employees cannot accurately describe their health plan’s core benefits.
• Only 35% believe their employer communicates benefits “very effectively.”
• Yet 68% say that well-communicated benefits would increase their loyalty to the company.
Communicating benefits is no longer a once-a-year open enrollment exercise. It’s a year-round engagement effort that connects the dots between employee well-being and company investment.
Turning Benefits into a Competitive Advantage
This is where the Mployer Benefit Recognition Program makes the difference.
Through our Employer Benefit Award and recognition system, Mployer provides third-party validation that your benefits are not only competitive—but also worthy of public recognition.
Participating employers receive:
• An unbiased benefits rating benchmarked against industry peers
• A benefit summary report highlighting your strongest advantages
• Award badges and recognition toolkit providing third-party credibility for your website, social media, and recruitment materials
• Ready-to-use social media templates to promote your benefits on LinkedIn and beyond
• A visually striking award poster to display on-site, sparking employee conversations about the value of your benefits
By leveraging Mployer’s independent credibility, employers transform their benefits from a hidden cost center into a visible differentiator—enhancing recruitment, retention, and brand perception simultaneously.
Retention Starts with Recognition
In an era defined by labor shortages and rising turnover costs, the companies that win will be those that treat employee benefits not as an expense, but as a strategic investment.
The data tells the story: organizations that both offer competitive benefits and communicate them effectively enjoy up to half the turnover rates of their peers. Recognition, transparency, and consistent messaging are key to helping employees see the true value of what you provide.
Your workforce is your most valuable asset. Make sure they know how much they’re worth.
Learn more or see if your company qualifies for an Employer Benefit Award by visiting Mployer.
The modern labor market is defined by choice. In this competitive landscape, the time it takes to fill a critical position—your Time to Fill (TTF)—has become a painful metric. TTF measures the days between when a job is posted and when an offer is accepted, and every extra day costs your business. These are not just abstract numbers; they are tangible losses: decreased productivity from overburdened teams, halted projects, missed revenue targets, and increased recruiting fees (Source 1).
The solution to a high TTF doesn't lie solely in higher base salaries or aggressive sourcing. It lies in your benefits package.
Exceptional benefits are no longer a perk; they are the most efficient talent acquisition strategy to drastically reduce TTF. By treating your benefits package as a competitive differentiator, you can accelerate candidates through the hiring pipeline faster, saving thousands in the process.
The Attraction Phase: Benefits as a Candidate Magnet
In the crowded digital space, a candidate's first interaction with your company is often filtering for what matters most to their life. This is where your benefits package first accelerates the process.
Filter Efficiency and Signal Quality
Candidates actively use benefit offerings as a primary search filter on major job boards. By offering superior benefits, your role gains instant visibility among highly qualified candidates who are explicitly looking for employer support.
Furthermore, a robust benefits package serves as a powerful signal quality indicator. It immediately tells a prospective hire that your company is stable, healthy, and genuinely employee-first. This signals a positive company culture, immediately making your job more attractive than competitors offering standard, minimal coverage.
High-Value Benefits That Reduce Hesitation
Focusing on benefits that address major life stressors can dramatically shorten a candidate’s initial hesitation and application decision. High-perceived-value benefits like generous Paternity and Maternity Leave policies, comprehensive Mental Health Coverage, and practical Flexible Work Arrangements (Hybrid/Remote) instantly elevate your offer. These concrete; life-changing benefits are far more persuasive than a generic promise of a "competitive salary."
The Conversion Phase: Benefits as a Negotiation Accelerator
Once you find a great candidate, the negotiation phase is where Time to Fill often stalls. Strong benefits act as rocket fuel, accelerating the offer acceptance and minimizing costly, time-consuming back-and-forth.
Reducing Offer Time
When an offer is extended, a truly compelling benefits package often results in candidates accepting the first offer. They don't feel the need for lengthy counter-offers focused solely on base salary because the total value is already overwhelming.
A clear, well-articulated benefits statement in the offer letter minimizes follow-up questions, builds trust, and speeds up the decision-making process. The certainty and value provided by the benefits act as an irresistible closing tool.
Framing the Total Compensation Advantage
To fully leverage this advantage, your HR team must be trained to frame the discussion around Total Compensation Value. Show candidates how elements like a 100% 401(k) match, fully-funded health insurance options, or student loan repayment programs can easily surpass a perceived $5,000 difference in base salary.
When candidates are weighing multiple offers, the company that provides the most security, flexibility, and value outside of the paycheck will significantly shorten the candidate's decision time, often securing the top talent before competitors can react.
The Long-Term Ripple Effect on TTF
The benefits ROI doesn't stop once the offer is signed. A strategic benefits package initiates a powerful, long-term ripple effect that fundamentally lowers your overall vacancy rate and future TTF.
Boosted Employee Referrals
Happy employees are your best and fastest source of talent. When staff are genuinely satisfied with their compensation and benefits (especially high-value items like Sabbatical programs or generous PTO), they become powerful advocates. This satisfaction increases the likelihood of employees referring high-quality candidates, who are typically onboarded faster because of the pre-vetted nature of the relationship. Referral hires are consistently the fastest and cheapest source of talent for any organization.
Lower Turnover Rate
Ultimately, a high TTF is often symptomatic of high employee turnover. Strong benefits increase employee retention, meaning you have fewer open jobs to fill in the first place. Since TTF is calculated using both the vacancy rate and the duration of those vacancies, better benefits effectively tackle both components simultaneously.
Quantifying the Benefits: TTF vs. Public Perception
The impact of your benefits is no longer limited to the candidates you interview; it's public. When candidates research a company, they immediately consult public review platforms like Glassdoor. These platforms link candidate sentiment directly to your hiring efficiency.
Mployer’s recent analysis of 300 companies and over 2,000 open roles during a 120-day period revealed a critical connection between public sentiment and hiring speed. We compared organizations with exceptionally high Glassdoor benefit ratings (a key proxy for positive external perception) against those with mid-to-lower ratings. The result was a dramatic acceleration in the hiring funnel: for companies with top-tier benefit ratings, the average Time to Fill (TTF) was just 19 days, compared to 27 days for their counterparts—a significant 32% reduction in hiring time. While this trend was most pronounced among smaller organizations (like local businesses to mid-market firms), large global corporations (including Samsung, Morgan Stanley, and GE) demonstrated the same efficiency gain, affirming the universal impact of a strong benefit-based Employer Value Proposition.
Companies with an "Excellent" or "Above Average" benefit rating (4.0+ stars on Glassdoor, for example) consistently report a Time to Fill that is 15-20% shorter than industry peers with "Average" or "Poor" benefit ratings (Source 2). This efficiency is driven by the immediate credibility and trust built before the candidate even submits an application. A strong public rating reduces the need for the candidate to perform extensive due diligence, further accelerating the initial application phase.
Enhanced Employer Brand
A consistently excellent benefits package strengthens your overall Employer Value Proposition (EVP). This enhanced brand, which is now supported by public data, naturally improves all future recruiting efforts by attracting passive candidates who have been watching your company’s reputation grow.
Conclusion: The Investment That Pays for Itself
The takeaway is clear: investing in market-leading benefits doesn't cost money; it saves money by drastically reducing the tangible costs associated with lengthy vacancies, high recruiting fees, and low productivity.
Benefits act as an accelerant across all three critical phases of hiring: they Attract more candidates, convert them faster, and ensure their Retention, fueling a steady stream of future referral hires.
Action Item: Review your current benefits package through the lens of a prospective, top-tier candidate. Where can you add immediate, high-impact value? The race for talent is won by the company that makes the quickest, most compelling offer—and that starts with great benefits.
To gain a competitive edge and identify your specific TTF acceleration points, benchmark your offerings today. See how your benefits stack up against industry peers through a free, unbiased rating: Visit https://mployeradvisor.com/employer-rating
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