HSA Personalization: The Key to Higher Engagement

Picture this: You’re a member of your company’s human resources and are given the monumental task of increasing employee engagement in your company’s health savings account (HSA) benefit, which supports many of the needs your employees have. In addition to keeping employees happy, you’re challenged to do more for your employees despite the rising cost of healthcare.

Now think about it from the perspective of an employee: What are their goals? Putting yourself in this frame of mind can make thinking about this challenge a bit easier. Likely, employees want benefits that support their needs, save them money, and help them feel secure about their future in their role.

So the question is: How can you increase employee engagement?  

HSAs and the importance of personalization

While HSAs have been around for less than 20 years, they are becoming increasingly important in an employee’s investment, retirement, and health expense planning. Having the technology and resources in place to personalize benefits for employees is critical in helping them reach their goals – and in turn, helping you reach yours. 

HSA engagement by the numbers: How employers benefit

It’s simply not enough to want employees to engage more with their HSAs – that’s a given with any benefit a company offers. Here are a few specifics around how employers benefit from higher HSA engagement: 

• HSA-eligible plans tend to have lower premiums, which means both employers and their employees save more money in the long run. 
• Financial stress reduces workplace performance, noted by 80 percent of employers in our research. This can end up costing companies an estimated half a trillion dollars. HSAs support overall employee wellness, especially financial.
• Even if employees aren’t engaging with their HSA, it still ends up costing money. Our research shows that each non-user HSA costs about $25, which can add up once administrative costs are factored into the equation. 

Supporting HSA participants through encouragement, education, and empowerment

Increasing HSA engagement through personalization starts with support for participants no matter how they currently use their HSA. Follow these three simple E’s to support employees who are HSA participants:

• Encourage: The beauty of an HSA is that it can work as a variety of things: short-term savings, long-term accounts for retirement, and more. Encourage employees to use an HSA to meet their current and future life goals and rest easy knowing that behavior can shift as their life progresses. 
• Educate: If employees aren’t aware of what an HSA can do for them, how are they able to take full advantage of all HSAs have to offer? Think about how your HSA’s perks are communicated. Ensure that employees understand what an HSA is (and isn’t) and different ways they can use their account so they can choose the strategy that works best for them. 
• Empower: Employee goals change and their HSA should move along with them. Give employees the tools they need to succeed and adapt their goals throughout the stages of their life, with features like easy-to-use debit cards for spending, a mobile app/online account for simplified investing, and resources like handouts, guides, and articles to help them explore all that HSAs have to offer. 

While increasing employee engagement might seem like a monumental task, there are a variety of places to start – especially with HSA personalization. 

Interested in learning more about how HSA personalization can increase employee engagement with their accounts? Read our full research summary here!

The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice. For legal or tax advice, you should consult your own counsel.