By Mita Mallick
Retaining talent goes beyond paychecks. Employees stay when they feel valued through benefits that support wellness, homeownership, and lifelong learning. From wellness platforms like Wellhub, to mortgage support with Multiply Mortgage, to book reimbursements, creative perks foster connection, stability, and growth—building loyalty while strengthening both employee wellbeing and organizational success.
Retaining talent in a competitive labor market isn’t always about “just paying them more money” to stay. Sure, we all want to be paid well. And sometimes, it is not just the generous base pay, the bonus, and stock options that get us to stay. It’s the unique and differentiated way our leaders, and employers, help us feel valued and supported.
Start with these creative benefits to show employees their employer is going beyond just what they see in their paychecks:
1. Give your employees the power to focus on their wellness
The foundation of good leadership starts with taking care of ourselves. When we don’t sleep well, don’t eat right, get little to no exercise, and don’t spend time with our loved ones, we can find ourselves creeping into bad boss behaviors. Because taking care of each other in the workplace starts with taking care of ourselves. Investing in your employees’ wellness is an investment in your business.
More and more employees are focused on the rising importance of wellness. It’s the quest to get better health, better fitness, better nutrition, better appearance, better sleep, and better mindfulness. But this goes beyond just providing a gym reimbursement membership, this means giving employees the power, and the choices, to focus on their overall wellbeing.
Look into partnering with corporate benefits platforms that help plan for every employee. Choose platforms that connect employees with various options for fitness, mindfulness, nutrition, and sleep, and allow employees to make their own choices. Some platforms even offer challenges for employees to participate in and build community and connection.
There’s an increasing trend where employees are finding connection and camaraderie through shared wellness activities as opposed to traditional bonding events like happy hours. Employee wellness programs can be intentionally designed to amplify this, creating a vibrant community where everyone feels supported and inspired to thrive together.
Companies using platforms like this have seen widespread adoption. 61% of employees had no gym membership prior to using this type of platform, and they have led to a 35% reduction in annual employee healthcare costs (in a time when healthcare costs are about to rise significantly), plus a 30% reduction in turnover. A type of benefit like this can be more powerful than adding a couple of hundred dollars to someone’s paycheck.
2. Support employees in putting down roots and building community
Employees who own their home and put down roots into a community are far less likely to leave your company and relocate somewhere else. And yet many individuals aren’t able to afford a home. Middle-class families in half in less than half of the U.S. can afford an average priced home. 92% of individuals who would like to own a home said “they were at least somewhat stressed about buying” one in 2025. According to a Clever Real Estate study, 32% of Americans are afraid they won’t be able to make housing payments as a result of today’s economy.
Here’s where leaders and companies can step in: Offer resources and support your employees’ ability to purchase their first home. Partner with companies that offer employees one-on-one sessions with mortgage advisers, employee education sessions around the home purchase and financing process, and mortgage interest rate discounts of up to .75%.
Homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans, and interest rates aren’t expected to fall to 2020 levels ever again. When you help employees put down their roots and build community, they become more invested in your company. They are also more invested in the life they are building and are less likely to move jobs and uproot their families to another location. They are more likely to stay and grow their careers with your organization.
3. Enable employees to continuously be learning on their own
According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, 88% of organizations are concerned about employee retention. Survey respondents also shared that the number one retention strategy was to provide learning opportunities. On average, companies spend more than $340 billion on employee training and development, approximately $1500 per employee every year. This burden of learning can not solely be on leaders and human resources to help employees learn. We need to enable employees to continuously learn on their own.
Consider implementing a book reimbursement benefit to encourage a culture of learning. Allow employees to reimburse any books where they are learning a new skill, expanding their world view, or keeping up with current events. This could also include podcasts and subscriptions to publications. Encourage employees to share what types of content they are consuming. You can support them in starting book clubs, hosting authors in the office for “ask me anything” events, and brainstorming what learnings they could implement into the business.
Sometimes it is not just paying individuals more, giving them a spot bonus, or offering them another stock grant, that keeps them working with us. It’s when we think about what our employees need and support them both in and outside of the office, that’s when we start to see them succeed, thrive and want to stay.
Mita Mallick
