In a new interview with StaffingHub, Carl Stecker, founder and CEO of Benefits in a Card, with over 30 years in staffing benefits; makes the case that low participation, not plan quality, is quietly costing firms millions.
A few of the key takeaways:
The bigger the firm, the worse the problem. Stecker says participation tends to drop as company size grows, largely because benefits offerings aren’t built into the systems where workers actually make decisions: the ATS, onboarding flow, etc.
Participation drives retention, and retention drives EBITDA. Employees who enroll in benefits stay 45% longer on average. Stecker cites one client that raised participation from 2.8% to 12.8% and saw it translate into a $27 million EBITDA lift.
Texts and emails alone don’t move the needle much. His approach is to build enrollment directly into the onboarding moment, right when a worker is already making decisions, rather than following up after the fact.
Turnover has a hidden double cost. Beyond losing the retention benefit, firms that lose an unenrolled worker early also eat the full cost of recruiting, background-checking, and onboarding a replacement on top of missing out on the retention-driven savings.
Security matters as much as participation. Stecker notes that flat-file, CSV-based data transfer is still common industry-wide and increasingly risky, which is part of why Benefits in a Card built out its integration footprint (270+ integrations) using encrypted, API-based data exchange instead.
What’s next: Stecker’s team has built a real-time calculator (coming soon!) that will show clients their retention lift updating every payroll cycle, aiming to make the financial case visible and immediate rather than theoretical.
