Your Employees Have Benefits. Are They Actually Using Them?
Here’s a scenario:
Your company offers an Employee Assistance Program.
Employees have access to virtual doctor visits without leaving work.
There’s money available for preventive care, wellness programs, disability coverage and tax-advantaged accounts.
The benefits are there. The company is paying for them.
So why aren’t employees using them?
It’s a question more employers are asking. In The Hartford’s 2025 Future of Benefits Study, 75% of employers said their workers underutilize the benefits and services available to them. And in its 2026 study, 79% of employers said educating employees about benefits continues to be a challenge.That points to a bigger issue in employee benefits: offering a benefit and getting value from a benefit are two different things.
What HR Professionals Say Employees Aren’t Using
At Caravus’ 2026 Benefits Beat in St. Louis, we asked 29 HR professionals a simple question:
What’s the one-hit-wonder benefit you wish more employees actually used?
The answers covered everything from preventive care and virtual visits to disability coverage, wellness programs and FSA/HSA accounts.
But one benefit stuck a chord with our audience: the Employee Assistance Program, or EAP.
21% of respondents named an EAP — making it the most common answer in our survey.
Other frequently mentioned benefits included:
Short- and long-term disability: 14% of responses
Teladoc/virtual visits: 14% responses
Preventive care: 10% of responses
FSA/HSA: 10% responses
Provider wellness programs: 10% responses
This was an informal survey of Benefits Beat attendees and is not intended to represent all employers or employees in the St. Louis region.
The Employee Assistance Program Paradox
The EAP finding is particularly interesting because EAPs are far from a niche benefit.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 59% of private-industry workers had access to an employee assistance program in March 2025. Access varied significantly by employer size, from 40% of workers at establishments with fewer than 100 employees to 87% at establishments with 500 or more employees.
So if EAPs are relatively common, why did HR professionals identify them as a benefit employees aren't using enough?
There isn't one answer, but awareness and understanding may be part of the problem.
Employees may know an EAP exists without knowing what it actually offers. They may associate it only with counseling or crisis support when their program offers a much broader range of resources. Or they may simply forget about it after seeing the information during open enrollment.
And they're not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the benefits landscape.
The Hartford found that 35% of U.S. workers don't understand the supplemental benefits offered by their employer or what those benefits cover, while 36% are unsure how their benefits work together.
In other words, the challenge may not always be getting employees to value their benefits.
Sometimes, it's getting them to understand them in the first place.
EAP Isn't the Only Benefit Sitting on the Sidelines
Virtual care was tied for second on our list, with 14% of the survey’s respondents saying they wished more employees used it. That's notable because virtual healthcare has become a common part of employer-sponsored benefits. A 2025 McGriff employer benefits survey found that 82% of employers offer virtual health or telemedicine services.
Yet having access doesn't automatically mean employees will use it.
The same pattern showed up across our survey responses. HR professionals mentioned benefits that can help employees:
Get preventive care
Manage unexpected health or personal challenges
Access healthcare more conveniently
Save money through tax-advantaged accounts
Protect their income when they're unable to work
Take advantage of wellness resources
These aren't necessarily unpopular benefits. They're benefits that may be underused, misunderstood or forgotten. And that's an important distinction.
Available Doesn’t Mean Understood Or Used
An employee can have access to a benefit and still not know how to use it.
They can understand what a benefit is and still not realize when it could help them.
And they can receive information about a benefit during open enrollment and completely forget about it six months later.
The Hartford's research reinforces this gap. 71% of U.S. workers say they want to learn about their benefits year-round, not just during open enrollment. Meanwhile, 72% of employers say they need better resources to help employees understand their benefits.
That creates an opportunity for employers to rethink what benefits communication looks like.
How Employers Can Turn Unused Benefits Into Used Benefits
1. Stop saving all the communication for open enrollment
Open enrollment is important, but it's not the only time employees need to hear about their benefits.
An employee experiencing stress in March isn't thinking about the benefits guide they received in November. An employee who suddenly needs to see a doctor after hours may not remember that virtual care is included in their plan.
Benefits communication is more useful when it happens throughout the year — and when it's connected to something employees are actually experiencing.
2. Explain the benefit, not just the name
“EAP” may be familiar to HR professionals, but it doesn't necessarily tell an employee what they can get from it.
Instead of simply listing a benefit, explain what it can do.
The same goes for FSAs, HSAs, disability coverage, virtual care and wellness programs. The more clearly employees understand how a benefit fits into their lives, the easier it is for them to recognize when they should use it.
3. Talk about benefits when they're relevant
A benefits calendar can be just as useful as an open enrollment calendar.
Think about when certain resources are most relevant and build communication around those moments. Promote preventive care before the end of the plan year. Remind employees about virtual care during cold and flu season. Highlight EAP resources when workplace stress tends to increase.
The goal isn't to bombard employees with more benefits information.
It's to give them the right information at the right time.
4. Make benefits easy to find
Even the most valuable benefit won't get much use if employees can't figure out where to access it. Make the path to the benefit as simple as possible with a clean, updated benefits guide.
5. Look at utilization data
If you're investing in a benefit, it makes sense to understand whether employees are using it.
Low utilization doesn't automatically mean a benefit isn't valuable. It could indicate an awareness problem, a communication problem or simply that employees don't understand when the benefit is relevant.
Utilization data can help employers ask better questions like:
Do employees know about this benefit?
Do they understand it?
Is it easy to access?
Is it solving a problem employees actually have?
These questions can lead to better benefits decisions than simply adding another benefit to the lineup.
6. Work with a benefits consultant who can advocate for your employees
HR teams shouldn't have to be the only resource employees turn to when they have questions about their benefits.
A strong benefits consultant can help bridge that gap by providing ongoing support and advocacy — helping employees understand their options, navigate the healthcare system and get the most from the benefits their employer is already paying for.
For employers, that support can also provide valuable insight into the questions and challenges employees are experiencing. Those conversations can help identify where employees are getting stuck and where additional communication or education may be needed.
Your Benefits Package Is Only Part of the Story
Employers are investing heavily in benefits to attract and retain employees, support their workforce and help manage the cost of healthcare.
But a benefit doesn't create value simply because it's included in the plan. The real value comes when employees know it's there, understand how it can help them and actually use it.
That's what made our Benefits Beat survey so interesting. The “one-hit wonder” benefits HR professionals mentioned weren't necessarily bad benefits; in many cases, they were benefits employers had intentionally included because they believed they could make a difference.
The challenge is making sure employees know they're there.
Because the goal shouldn't just be to build a benefits package employees can access… It's to build a benefits strategy employees can actually use.