How Employers Are Providing More With Less, with Kari Aikins

Organizations continue to face pressure to provide more benefits amidst fewer resources and rising healthcare costs —forcing HR leaders to rethink how benefit dollars are spent. The July EN:Insights Forum explored this challenge by looking at SHRM's 2026 Employee Benefits Survey. 

The discussion featured Kari Aikins, vice president at Segal, a benefits and HR consulting firm. Aikins brings more than 20 years of HR leadership experience across industries from healthcare to higher education, as well as expertise in total rewards.  

Aikins emphasized that CHROs are moving beyond simple cost-shifting toward a more strategic, data-driven approach to benefits — one that treats healthcare as a productivity investment rather than just an expense. 

How are CHROs balancing financial stability with the need to maintain competitive benefits that attract and retain talent?

Rather than simply shifting costs year over year through tweaks to co-pays and premiums, organizations are taking a more strategic approach centered on value, outcomes, and utilization, Aikins explained.  

She noted that benefits were originally viewed as a cost center, whereas today they are seen as a workforce strategy. Leading organizations are protecting core benefits like healthcare, retirement readiness, and paid leave. At the same time, companies are redesigning how those benefit programs are delivered — through plan redesigns, network optimization, pharmacy benefit management, and a sharper focus on preventive care and chronic condition management.

"Employers are focusing on value, they're focusing on outcomes, they're focusing on the utilization of these benefits," she said. “They’re all connected. Beyond simple cost containment, [it’s about spending] our benefit dollars in ways that improve the lives of our employees but also support business performance.” 

Benefits are one of the largest investments organizations make in their workforce. How are CHROs and executive teams measuring whether those investments are actually improving attraction, retention, productivity, well-being, and overall business performance?

Aikins pointed to the value of building an integrated dashboard that pulls together claims and utilization data, disability and leave trends, engagement scores, and benchmark data into a single view. She noted this kind of holistic reporting allows organizations to evaluate benefits not just on cost or perceived value, but on productivity and broader workforce trends. 

"It's really optimizing your rewards package by taking all of the data points that you have," she said, adding that dashboards should be built out over multiple years to track the metrics that matter most for a given organization.

If you were advising a CHRO building a three-year benefit strategy today, what capabilities or investments should organizations prioritize now to remain competitive over the next several years?

Aikins recommended organizations refocus on optimizing their total rewards package by identifying where core benefits can be enhanced or adjusted. She described mapping potential changes across cost, implementation difficulty, and workforce disruption to determine what can be tackled immediately versus what belongs on a longer-term roadmap. 

Additionally, Aikins noted that using this scaled, organized approach helps HR leaders avoid taking on more than they can manage at once.