The Employee Benefits Paradox: Great Programs No One Uses

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Summary Melissa Zaino runs global benefits at Zayo Group, a fiber company competing with Google and Verizon. Her team serves 2,600 employees—half of them field technicians. She's also someone who once got underwater with credit cards and entered a consumer credit counseling program, an experience that still shapes how she thinks about financial stress at work. In this conversation, she explains why benefits teams are losing the plot: companies buy surgical point solutions for cancer, fertility, and weight management, then wonder why nobody uses them. The problem isn't the programs—it's the communication. Melissa's team stopped leading with vendor names and started leading with what the benefit actually does. She also shares why employee surveys matter more than ROI spreadsheets, and why AI might finally help demystify leave policies without violating PII. Timestamps 00:42 Melissa's role at Zayo Group and the makeup of a 2,600-person workforce 01:28 What a fiber company does and how Zayo competes with Google and Verizon 02:11 Melissa's earliest memory of money: quarters in Easter eggs 03:11 Her first job at Randall's Supermarkets and buying song lyric magazines 04:09 How her father's job loss during the Libya oil embargo shaped her relationship with money 05:56 Getting underwater with credit cards and entering consumer credit counseling 07:04 Why financial wellness can't just mean 401(k) matching 08:44 The point solution explosion: why employees don't know how cancer, fertility, and pharmacy carving all interact 11:18 Why benefits teams must stop leading with vendor names 12:32 How fertility and menopause benefits attract talent and show employees they're valued 15:22 Why employee survey feedback matters more than trying to nail down ROI on new programs 17:45 How Garner Health delivered hard-dollar savings by steering to top-performing providers 18:24 Melissa's prediction: AI will help demystify benefits without violating PII 21:29 Where to connect with Melissa on LinkedIn Takeaways * Lead benefits communications with what the program does, not the vendor name—employees don't care who built it, they care what problem it solves. * Employee survey feedback is ROI: if people feel valued and financially secure, you're already winning before the utilization reports come in. * Point solutions break down when employees can't see how cancer coverage, pharmacy carving, and fertility benefits fit together—benefits teams must show the full medical ecosystem, not just the parts. * AI's biggest benefits opportunity isn't chatbots—it's anonymized, deep analytics that surface cardiovascular trends or leave patterns without exposing PII. Connect with the guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-zaino-cebs-phr-b992b3/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-zaino-cebs-phr-b992b3/] Zayo Group: https://www.zayo.com [https://www.zayo.com] Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ [https://www.aurafinance.com/]

How BambooHR Moved Comp Understanding From 50% to 90% With One Training

Summary One in two employees at BambooHR said they didn't understand how their compensation was determined. After a single mandatory compensation 101 training, that number flipped—nearly 90% said they now understood. Engagement scores went up year over year. No new spend. No new vendor. Just education. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Alex Bertin, Head of Total Rewards at BambooHR, for a practical conversation about what it looks like to close the understanding gap between what a company offers and what employees actually know they have. Alex brings a finance background from FP&A at Delta Air lines and Qualtrics before finding his way into compensation—what he calls the Cinderella glass slipper moment—and he carries a grounded empathy for frontline employees into every benefits decision he makes. He and Kelsey get into why the biggest breakdown in comp and benefits isn't the package itself but the disconnect between what exists and what employees know about it, how BambooHR's paid vacation bonus (yes, they pay you to take your vacation) has become their most beloved benefit, a student loan repayment benefit that an employee forgot about twice despite it being $100/month in free money, and why the next wave of AI in benefits will be agentic tools that connect all your benefits in one place so employees stop losing track of what they have. If you run total rewards and are looking for low-cost, high-impact ways to drive engagement, Alex's perspective on education over addition will resonate. Timestamps 01:42 Alex's earliest money memory: $2 bills and selling Costco candy at swim lessons 04:33 How empathy for frontline workers keeps comp decisions grounded 07:50 Where compensation and benefits break down most: the understanding gap 10:30 The comp 101 training that moved understanding from 50% to 90% 13:44 The paid paid vacation bonus and milestone increases at 5, 10, 15, and 20 years 17:50 AI-driven benefits navigation: one place, one overlay, better utilization 20:01 Financial wellness as a founding principle, not an afterthought 21:08 The 30-day experiment: run a "use it" campaign on your most underutilized benefit Takeaways * The biggest breakdown in total rewards isn't the package—it's the understanding gap; one comp training can shift employee trust dramatically * Don't just offer benefits—actively market them to your employees the way you'd market a product to customers; it takes seven touches for a message to land * A paid paid vacation bonus that actually gives employees money to take their trip is more powerful than unlimited PTO because it changes behavior * Check which benefits employees are forgetting about; free money that goes unused is worse than not offering it at all * Run a 30-day "use it" campaign on one underutilized benefit with weekly emails, real stories, and clear how-tos—the results are binary and the cost is nearly zero Connect with the Guest Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbertin/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbertin/] Company website: https://www.bamboohr.com [https://www.bamboohr.com] Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ [https://www.aurafinance.com/] * (01:42) - Alex's earliest money memory: $2 bills and selling Costco candy at swim lessons * (04:33) - How empathy for frontline workers keeps comp decisions grounded * (07:50) - Where compensation and benefits break down most: the understanding gap * (10:30) - The comp 101 training that moved understanding from 50% to 90% * (13:44) - The paid paid vacation bonus and milestone increases at 5, 10, 15, and 20 years * (17:50) - AI-driven benefits navigation: one place, one overlay, better utilization * (20:01) - Financial wellness as a founding principle, not an afterthought * (21:08) - The 30-day experiment: run a "use it" campaign on your most underutilized benefit

21. maj 202622 min

The Employee Benefits Paradox: Great Programs No One Uses

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