What flexible benefits actually save you: a worked example

Most companies know flexible benefits are a good idea. Fewer know what the math looks like when you actually open up the package. Here is a real case scenario, calculated together with one of our clients before they decided that flexible benefits are a fit for them and their employees.

Why flexible benefits, and why now

Five generations are in the workforce at the same time. A graduate, a new parent, someone five years from retirement: they are not looking for the same envelope. And the data keeps telling us that the people sitting inside fixed packages are paying attention.

That number sits in the same neighbourhood three years running. It is not a blip, it is the baseline. Better benefits is now a credible reason to leave a job, on its own.

The utilization gap nobody talks about

Here is the awkward part. A wellness allowance is often the most-promoted benefit in a package, and roughly four in ten employees never touch it. The numbers come out roughly the same across industries.

Roughly 40 to 45 percent of employees do not use the wellness allowance their employer is paying for. Not because they do not want a benefit, but because they do not want that benefit, in that form, with those approved categories.

What employees actually ask for

It is worth pausing on that. Four out of five employees are not asking for more benefits. They are asking for the existing spend to be shaped around their actual life.

A pensioner-track employee, a new parent, and a recent graduate all sit on the same fixed package today, and only one of them ever feels well served by it.

Different generations, different envelopes

When you ask the four working generations to rank what they value, the picture splits cleanly.

Two things stand out. First, the older the employee, the more strongly they ask for flexibility. Boomers and Gen X lean hardest into "tailored to me," not the youngest. Second, professional development is a Gen Z signature. One fixed envelope cannot serve those two ends of the spectrum at the same time.

What people actually pick when you give them the choice

When employees are handed a real budget and a catalog, here is the spread we see most often.

Notice the range of benefits that opens up when the employee can choose themselves. This proves that employees do not really care about getting as much as possible for their money through tax-free benefits, they care about getting something that gives value to their life.

A typical Swedish package, and where the flex lives

Let us run this on a real-shape company: a Swedish mid-size with roughly 80 employees. Here is roughly what a typical package looks like, and the add-ons this specific client offers on top.

A typical package:

• Occupational pension
• Life insurance
• Long-term sickness insurance
• Occupational injury insurance
• Wellness allowance
• Eye exam and terminal glasses

This client's add-ons:

• Private healthcare insurance
• Private accident insurance
• Wellness hour, 1 hour per week

What stays fixed, what opens up

Not everything can or should flex. The structural insurance, pension, and the wellness hour stay. The rest, the cash-equivalent benefits and the things people use unevenly, is where flex lives.

Building the budget

Once you sum the flexed lines, including social contributions on the benefit-in-kind portion, you get a per-employee envelope that an individual can spend as they choose.

The takeaway: the social-contribution piece is where most of the optionality hides, which is what the next section is about.

Three scenarios, three savings totals

The interesting question is not "does it save money" (it usually does) but "how much, and where does the saving come from?" There are three honest scenarios to model.

Three scenarios, one design choice. The biggest lever is not the budget number, it is who carries the social contribution on benefits-in-kind. Once that piece moves, the saving scales with headcount, and the employee still walks away with a more useful package than the one they had. That design choice, the employer cost staying flat while the employee still gets the full value, is why companies choose CLVR.

Flexibility is not a discount on benefits. It is the same money, deployed in a way employees actually feel.

The short version

• 79% would switch jobs for better benefits. Three years running.
• Roughly 40 to 45 percent of employees never touch their wellness allowance.
• 81% want benefits adapted to their life situation. Older generations ask for it the loudest.
• Structural benefits (pension, long-term sickness, wellness hour) stay fixed. Cash-equivalent benefits open up.
• The biggest savings lever is the social-contribution treatment, not the budget number itself.
• Scenario 3, adjusted budget with employees carrying the BIK social contribution, saves 235 220 kr / year for an 80-person company, and the employee package gets more useful, not less.