How Benefits Benchmarking Helps You Win the Talent War

Are you offering the right benefits to attract top talent? Job seekers will be comparing your benefits to those other companies offer. If you want to attract the best candidates, you need to do the same. Benefits benchmarking provides data, enabling you to be confident that your benefits meet the needs of top talent.

Winning in a Tight Labor Market

It’s becoming harder to find skilled workers. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, employers are struggling to find enough workers to fill open jobs – a trend that’s playing out in every industry and nearly every state and among companies of all sizes.

One issue is there are too few workers. The baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age and leaving the workforce. To make matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted more than 3 million adults to retire early. Overall, the labor force participation rate has fallen from 67.2% in January 2001 to just 62.5% in March 2025. That may seem like a small difference, but the U.S. labor force has lost about 1.7 million workers since February 2020.

Finding workers is hard enough, but finding good workers is harder still. As baby boomers retire, employers lose their most knowledgeable and experienced workers. As a result, skilled workers are in high demand.

How Do Your Benefits Stack Up?

The right benefits can help your company attract and retain top workers in a tight labor market – but how do you know if your benefits are what the top talent wants?

You might think your benefits are great, but if other companies offer even better benefits, they won’t seem great to job seekers. That could lead to you missing out on the best job candidates. It could even make it easier for your competitors to poach your best workers.

If you want to know how your benefits stack up, you need to leverage benefits benchmarking.

What Is Benefits Benchmarking?

Benefits benchmarking refers to the process of comparing your employee benefits to the employee benefits that others offer. Benchmarking allows you to see how your benefits stack up against industry standards, regional trends, and your competitors.

Benchmarking is a practical way to stay competitive in a tight labor market. If you find that your benefits fall short of industry standards in key ways, take steps to improve your offerings to become more competitive. This will help you attract better job applicants and retain your best workers. It’s also a smart way to ensure you maximize your investment. Employers pour a lot of resources into their employee benefits strategy and want to know they’re obtaining the results they need – benchmarking lets you do that.

Benchmarking is not a one-time process. Benefit trends change over time, leading worker expectations to evolve. Regular benchmarking can help you identify and keep up with trends to adjust your benefits strategy as needed.

How Can Benchmarking Data Guide Your Benefits Strategy?

Not all brokers have access to resources to help with benefits benchmarking. Here at Propel, though, we have an amazing benchmarking tool with comprehensive data, including:

• Customized benchmarking across national, regional, and industry-specific data
• Detailed analysis of benefits spending and plan usage
• Insights into plan design elements (e.g., deductibles, copays) to uncover savings opportunities
• Strategic guidance based on trends and peer comparisons to optimize your benefits

We’ll show you the data, help you understand how your benefits package stacks up, and work on actionable strategies for improvement. We’ll also help you demonstrate the value of your benefits to your workers through total rewards statements that drive home the true impact of their full compensation.

For more information, contact Megan Runci.