The Great Resignation, The Big Quit, The Great Reshuffle. Those were the headlines just a short time ago, when unprecedented numbers of workers left their jobs for better opportunities, including better pay and better benefits. Now, as the job market tightens, CEOs face bloated payrolls, forcing them to make tough decisions, including painful layoffs that drive down efficiencies and stymie growth.

This cyclical trend causes chaos for SMBs competing for employees in a competitive marketplace. Their past salary overdrive arose from the common wisdom that the best incentive for workers is more money, so manufacturers now offer an unsustainable $20 - $40 an hour based on the skill level.However, that common wisdom is wrong, and more money isn’t the main driver for labor migration.

In fact, 80% of workers say they’d take a job with better benefits over one with more salary. And that makes sense when you look at the numbers. Insurance deductibles for average single employees have increased almost 70% over the last decade, far higher than the cost of inflation.

The impact is forcing your employees to treat their health like a financial decision. Unsurprisingly, over 70% of Americans getting healthcare from their employer are paying down personal medical debt. That’s because many people don’t have up to $10,000 out-of-pocket on hand. That means designing your employee benefits as a financial benefit is more desirable than giving them more taxable income.

Until now, HR has calculated employee costs as salary plus the cost of care. Unfortunately, the cost of care is now the second or third largest line item on your P&L. As a company leader, you have an opportunity, even an obligation, to use your healthcare spending to impact the health of your entire business, not just employees.

The way to do this is deceptively simple. By working with the right healthcare consultants, you can reduce your healthcare costs by working with the most efficient providers. Those providers have the most experience in their given fields, and therefore, have the best healthcare outcomes. Better outcomes mean healthier employees, and greater efficiencies mean lower costs.

These savings aren’t just theoretical, and they don’t just benefit the employees. These consultants have a proven track record of reducing costs for employers by up to $2,000 per worker. Those savings can drive down payroll costs and reduce layoffs, or they can be repurposed as higher salaries and bonuses to retain your top workers.

It’s time to stop the unproductive and growth-killing salary arms race, and to start offering employees what they really want—stable benefits and predictable healthcare costs without the shock of inflated deductibles. Companies that do this are better able to attract new workers and retain the good ones without blowing up their labor costs.

As a leader and the key decision maker in your business, you have this opportunity to work with me as healthcare consultant, whose focus and compensation are based on achieving your business objectives. It‘s a needed, fresh approach to a problem that won’t go away.

Schedule a free call now to discuss how we can transform your employee benefits strategy!