Third of employers leave staff to navigate employee benefits alone

More than a third of UK employers are relying on employees to initiate the use of their workplace benefits themselves, raising concerns that investment in health, wellbeing and financial protection may be going underused.

Research from group risk industry body GRiD found 38% of employers leave employees to initiate benefits take-up, rather than actively encouraging them to access the support available.

Among those employers, almost half (49%) said they did not want employees to feel pressured into using benefits. However, 31% said they would prefer lower take-up because it helped manage costs, while 17% said they lacked the resources to continually encourage utilisation.

The findings come from research conducted by Opinium among 500 HR decision-makers in January 2026, alongside a separate nationally representative survey of 1,210 UK workers.

Employee responses suggest the passive approach to benefits communication may be contributing to significant gaps in awareness and understanding.

More than a third (36%) of employees said they were left to initiate benefits use themselves, closely reflecting the employer findings. Just 29% said their employer actively encouraged them to use the benefits available, while 31% were unsure or did not know.

Awareness was also limited. Among employees whose organisation provides benefits, just 18% said they were fully aware of everything available to them, including pensions, private healthcare, employee assistance programmes, cash plans, life assurance, long-term sick pay and critical illness cover.

A further 34% said they were aware of only some of their benefits, while 10% said they were unaware of any.

Understanding presents a similar challenge. Only 18% said they understood all the benefits offered by their employer. While 38% understood most, 40% said they understood only some.

Katharine Moxham, spokesperson for GRiD, said leaving responsibility for take-up with employees could limit both awareness and engagement.

“It is surprisingly common for employee benefits uptake to be left to employees,” she said. “Worryingly, the research shows this approach limits awareness and engagement, leaving employees unsure of the value or relevance of what is on offer.”

She encouraged employers to proactively champion their benefits programmes if they wanted employees to recognise and use the support available.

The findings also raise questions about the assumption that lower utilisation necessarily reduces employers’ benefits costs.

Almost a third (31%) of employers that leave take-up to employees said they preferred lower utilisation as a means of managing costs.

GRiD argues this can overlook the wider purpose of benefits designed to support health and wellbeing. Earlier access to appropriate support may help employees manage health conditions before they escalate, potentially reducing the risk of longer-term absence and more complex interventions.

Some services attached to group risk products – including employer-sponsored income protection, life assurance and critical illness cover – can also be available without an additional charge each time an employee uses them.

For HR and wellbeing leaders, the findings therefore highlight a distinction between providing a benefit and ensuring employees can actually derive value from it.

Low utilisation may indicate that a benefit is unnecessary or poorly matched to workforce needs. But it can also reflect low awareness, limited understanding or insufficient communication – making utilisation data difficult to interpret without considering why employees are not engaging.

Moxham said benefits should be viewed as part of employers’ wider approaches to retention, productivity and remuneration, rather than simply as products employees can choose to discover themselves.

“When responsibility for benefits uptake sits with employees, both awareness and understanding will suffer,” she said.

“Few staff are likely to use benefits they don’t know about or do not fully understand, creating wider knock-on effects: benefits are not simply a goodwill gesture, they support retention, productivity and form a key part of overall remuneration.”

The findings suggest that for employers investing significantly in workplace health, wellbeing and protection, communication and activation may need to be considered part of the benefits strategy itself – rather than something that ends once a benefit has been made available.