Employee expectations have shifted, and one-size-fits-all perks no longer work. Today’s workforce wants personalised employee benefits that match their needs, lifestyles, and locations. From global parity challenges to new HR tech, companies are rethinking how to deliver value while controlling costs. This blog explores why problem perks fail, how personalisation boosts engagement, and the solutions shaping the future of employee benefits.
Employees want the freedom to choose the benefits that fit their needs – tailored, spendable options for a happier, more fulfilled workforce.
On the headline numbers from our research and context-setters used in the paper:
- 60% of benefits managers would value spendable benefits cards for employees.
- 58% want to ensure employees are not excluded from benefits because of their working location.
- 50% are on the lookout for new software in the next year.
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Benefits are a game of trade-offs, and it’s hurting employers
Employee expectations have surged: A quarter of UK employees are unhappy with their benefits (25%, Drewberry). Personalisation matters: 87% of Gen Z want benefits tailored to them (Perkbox). And when choice is on the table, it wins. In a Forma survey of 17 benefit options, the top 15 were flexible; the highest-ranked fixed, employer-chosen perk came in at 16th. Against a tough talent market, many schemes aren’t meeting the mark and budgets aren’t limitless, as the financials and layoffs of 2023–2024 make clear.
Meanwhile costs are rising. In the so-called ‘perkcession’, employers from Meta to Salesforce cut premium perks such as free laundry, onsite speciality baristas and massages. Even the little luxuries disappeared, “They took away the dried mango,” as one Google manager put it, a telling sign of the times.
That leaves teams stuck between benefits that work brilliantly for some and those that work just enough for everyone. Many are exploring new software to ease the tension, but for most it’s still hard to avoid compromise.
The global, remote workforce is adding to the strain
Remote employees are going without parity in their benefits compared to employees based at HQ. 82% of benefits managers say they aren’t currently able to solve this challenge. 80% have at least some staff working outside their HQ country, but only one-fifth say these staff get consistent benefits. (Weavr research, 2024)
The middle ground – cutting dream perks, reducing choice or parity might not be a place employers can stand for long. Budget limitations and the desire for simplicity often open the door to “problem perks.”
Seen any of these “problem perks”?
- Situation one – a fixed benefit is “one size fits all” and doesn’t appeal to all (if any) employees. What it’s like:
- Free cinema tickets for a chain that doesn’t exist in your country
- Car-charging perk when very few own EVs
- Discounted gym membership when you live with chronic fatigue.
- Situation two – the way employees redeem benefits is inflexible or inconvenient. Employees bear the admin burden (forms, invoices, membership hoops). Friction can feel like a deterrent to spending allowances. What it’s like:
- You fill in a form to get a food-delivery voucher, but the voucher is only valid for new customers
- Or you use your own money and then request reimbursement
- Or give up because it’s too much faff
- Situation three – the budget is spread thin so an allowance feels too minuscule to be worth it. In some cases, using the benefit literally costs the employee money; it’s cheaper not to use it.
Why problem perks are a problem
Expectations have shifted. The bar has risen for equity, inclusion and non-discrimination, so even small issues can seem glaring. Employees might think: the employer wants to look good but not do good; this perk is a smokescreen; the employer doesn’t know or care what I need. Problem perks waste money — or worse, companies pay to damage their reputation among employees. A new solution to the budget challenge is needed.
How companies are tackling the problem
Of those without benefits parity for overseas employees, roughly one quarter say they’re working on it. Half of benefits managers are considering new software this year. 60% say they would value spend cards for employees. In general, three approaches are emerging:
- Hiring specialists
- New benefits tech
- New delivery mechanisms such as spendable benefits
1) The rise of the benefits manager
The challenge is now a specialism. More companies are hiring a benefits manager to design and implement strategy. In the US, the number of benefits managers grew roughly 30% between 2014 (15,701) and 2022 (20,622) (Data USA). The role has become strategic, focusing on uptake, usage and sentiment — and on employees recognising the value of what’s offered.
Benefits managers want to prioritise equity, unique perks and intel, yet 100% cite at least one difficulty achieving intended results. 58% want to ensure location doesn’t exclude people; 51% want the addition of innovative or unique perks; 50% want better data and analytics. (Weavr research, 2024)
…but they’re between a rock and a hard place. Top cited challenges include more WFH (27%) and increasing cost to employers (27%), plus new rules, younger generations, a complex landscape, revenue pressure, multi-country teams and cost-of-living pressures. Day-to-day realities can be thankless and approval-heavy, “plans E thru Z,” as one manager joked, with bureaucracy that drains time.
2) The rise of new benefits tech
Well over half of benefits managers are considering new software this year. Priorities cluster around giving employees more choice in how to redeem allowances, offering a greater variety of benefits, and offering more relevant benefits. Enablers include data insights and APIs to see uptake trends and tailor benefits, and automation to cut admin and enable self-service.
These shifts are producing more insight and less admin and sometimes more relevance and convenience for employees. However, it’s still a game of trade-offs: budget vs meaningful choice vs quality/impact vs parity. Traditional automation or insight alone can’t solve this; a fundamental change in the delivery mechanism is needed. Read more.
3) The rise of spendable benefits
Flexible benefits – opt in to what you want, opt out of what you don’t. Promise to stop paying for unwanted perks while letting each employee keep what they value. That used to be hard to pull off. Today, new delivery mechanisms make it possible, with controls so it’s not the same as handing over a company card.
Employee benefits are evolving, and spendable benefits cards are at the forefront. Instead of limited perks, they let employees choose how to use company allocated funds for fitness, wellbeing, learning, or everyday essentials, while employers retain control and compliance. Powered by embedded finance, this approach helps HR teams offer flexible, relevant benefits across regions, improving engagement and satisfaction. In this blog we explain how spendable benefits work, why they matter, and their impact on the future of HR tech.
This isn’t about giving an employee a card and saying “don’t spend it all in one place.” There are ways to restrict how much can be spent, which merchants can be used, and what can be bought. 60% of benefits managers say they would value employee spend cards. Cards that make designated company funds spendable on themed allowances via a physical (and virtual) card. You can already see forms of spendable benefits in the market. (Weavr research, 2024)
Why spendable benefits work
Spendable benefits essentially convert what a company spends on benefits into budgets an employee can choose what to do with, achieving a level of choice traditional programmes can’t.
The ambitions of benefits managers are fulfilled:
- Give employees full autonomy to choose benefits without compromising security
- Go beyond a restricted marketplace with more meaningful choices
- Allow employees to use allocated company funds to purchase only the benefits they care about.
For example, if per-employee spend is £300 on fitness, £300 on wellbeing and £900 on professional development, the intention doesn’t change, but now the employee chooses exactly how to spend within those categories.
The model also aligns with managers’ improvement priorities: 21% want to give more choice in how to redeem allowances, 26% are experimenting with a greater variety of benefits and 22% seek to deliver more relevant benefits. (Weavr research, 2024)
Funds move only when spent and always within the rules
With the right spend controls built into the payment mechanism, digital or physical, employees can’t, for example, use a work-from-home kit allowance on takeaway coffee. Disallowed categories (gambling, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, etc.) can be blocked, and employers can distinguish between what’s covered by benefits vs expenses (e.g., hotels, restaurants, taxis).
Benefits parity becomes possible abroad
Spendable benefits also address parity between colleagues who live far from the office or in different countries/jurisdictions. It’s a widespread issue, and HR tech companies have an opportunity to solve it for the masses.
The numbers: 80% of surveyed benefits managers have at least some staff outside their HQ country and only one-fifth say those staff get consistent benefits. 82% aren’t currently able to solve the challenge. (Weavr research, 2024)
Almost anything is possible: example categories and purchases
Here are examples of categories a benefits manager could allocate, with the kinds of purchases employees could choose to make with a spendable benefits card:
- Wellness – nutrition, alternative medicine, health insurance add-ons, dental, optical, consultancy, therapy, fertility/family planning.
- Office – uniforms/branded clothing, dry cleaning, safety wear, supplies, furniture, peripherals, telecoms/broadband, branded merchandise.
- Commute – public transport tickets, bicycle gear, e-bike/scooter, mobility aids, footwear, EV charging.
- Home – childcare, domestic services, carer/personal nurse, pet care, veterinary, home maintenance.
- Learning – independent financial adviser, training unrelated to work, language classes/apps, books/magazines/newspapers, podcasts, personal coaching.
- Fitness – fitness tracker, gym, sports club, equipment, fitness app, personal trainer, coaching, physiotherapy.
- Downtime – streaming subscriptions, entertainment tickets, charities, tourist attractions, experiences, spas/treatments.
- Career – professional coaching, learning platforms, events, membership fees, job-related courses, certifications.
What this looks like
Meet Jo, a senior product designer who never felt well served by traditional offerings. With a branded card added to Apple Pay, Jo taps at a surf shop for a £19.95 wax tool and lights up.
Meet Max, An engineer with an illustration dream. Max spends a “lifelong learning” budget on illustration courses, while a “help at home” budget frees up income for a self-published children’s book.
HR tech will soon compete on spendable benefits
Spendable benefits could become a typical feature across HR tech, not just within pure benefits platforms, but also employee engagement, reward and recognition, traditional HR suites and employee-centric “super apps”. The race is to deliver the most compelling proposition across stakeholders: value, fairness, choice, relevance and simplicity for employees. ROI, customisation, management empowerment and administrative manageability for benefits managers and brand halo, risk-aligned controls, visibility and indicators of effectiveness for other stakeholders.
How HR tech can adopt spendable benefits
If we list features such as branded virtual/physical debit cards, mobile-wallet payments, custom spend rules and real-time control, it may sound like “fintech.” But benefits managers don’t want a separate fintech bolt-on, they want a spendable benefits solution that sits inside their current tools (or the platform they’ll adopt next year). Should non-financial SaaS companies become fintechs? No.
Embedded finance: the next step for benefits tech
What powers spendable benefits behind the scenes is embedded finance. HR SaaS teams shouldn’t have to learn financial compliance, KYB, anti-fraud monitoring or build Strong Customer Authentication nor be responsible for transaction monitoring. That used to be the only path. Become a fintech or hire a specialist compliance team. Today, embedded finance makes financial features possible for non-financial SaaS, and it’s already in the pipeline for 70%+ of SaaS companies. (Weavr research, 2024)
What is embedded finance? Bringing financial products into non-financial customer experiences to create a seamless journey. Weavr provides an embedded finance solution designed for flexible benefits: from onboarding to SCA and transaction monitoring, handling the heavy lifting so product teams can focus on UX, with developer-friendly tooling and APIs.
Weavr is among the first embedded finance providers building employee-benefits-focused solutions to obtain an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence, granted after the Maltese Financial Services Authority’s extensive review of our operating model and safeguards.
Methodology
We commissioned Censuswide to interview 250 HR and benefits managers in companies with 50+ employees (roles collectively referred to as “benefits managers”).
