Your $12,000 Per Employee Investment: Is It Driving Value?

A CFO’s Guide to Unlocking Benefits ROI
‍If your organization invests between $10,000 and $15,000 per employee each year in benefits, that is one of your largest line items. But how much of that spend truly drives measurable value?

Many CFOs know what their benefits program costs, but not what it returns. If a finance leader managed a $6 million investment portfolio with no performance dashboard, no utilization metrics, and no visibility into return, it would be considered unacceptable. Yet that is how most organizations treat their benefits spend. The gap between cost and understanding is where money disappears through misuse, underutilization, and inefficiency. At SwellSpace, we call this the Financial Cost of Confusion. It is not an HR problem. It is a financial one.

Quantifying the Financial Leaks
‍Across industries, organizations face four consistent areas where value slips through the cracks: 

• Wasted healthcare spend
• Missed tax savings
• HR inefficiencies
• Turnover costs. 

Together, they add up to a significant portion of unrealized ROI.

‍Wasted Healthcare Spend
‍When employees cannot easily find their network details, co-pays, or telehealth options, they default to expensive or out-of-network care. Others delay care until costs escalate. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, benefits account for roughly 30 percent of total employer compensation¹. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports an average annual deductible of $1,787 for single coverage in 2024². Even a modest 3 percent improvement in plan utilization through clearer communication can generate meaningful savings for mid-sized employers. Better clarity leads to smarter, lower-cost decisions that directly reduce claims and premium expenses.

Missed Tax Savings
‍Many employees fail to fully use HSAs and FSAs or miss employer match opportunities because information is not clear or accessible. The result is lower perceived compensation value and greater financial stress, which affects productivity and retention. Industry research shows a large percentage of employees do not take full advantage of these tax-advantaged accounts each year³. Clearer communication helps employees capture that hidden value at no additional cost to the company, which increases the perceived worth of total compensation and improves ROI.

HR Time as Hidden Overhead
‍HR teams spend hours fielding repetitive questions such as “Is this doctor covered?” or “What is my deductible?” If an HR professional earns $50 per hour and spends 200 hours per year answering benefits questions, that is $10,000 in administrative overhead for one person. In larger organizations, that cost multiplies. Giving employees self-service access to accurate information allows companies to reclaim those hours for strategic work that drives retention, engagement, and culture. From a CFO’s perspective, this is direct labor cost recovery.

‍Turnover as a Capital Expense
‍Employee turnover is expensive. When employees do not understand their benefits, they often undervalue total compensation and are more likely to leave. Studies estimate that replacing an employee can cost between 30 and 200 percent of their annual salary, depending on role and seniority⁴⁵. The Employment Policy Foundation found the average turnover cost to be about $13,355 per full-time private-sector employee⁶, while Gartner placed that number closer to $18,591⁷. Even a 2 percent improvement in retention can yield substantial savings in hiring, onboarding, and lost productivity.

‍Turning Confusion Into ROI

• Barrier-Free Access: Remove friction by eliminating logins and complex portals. A mobile-friendly, public benefits website gives employees, dependents, retirees, and candidates 24/7 access to information. This reduces errors, claims, and compliance risks while ensuring every communication dollar drives utilization.

• Personalization and Audience Targeting: Tailor content by audience and topic to increase engagement. Relevance cuts through noise, improves understanding, and encourages cost-effective choices.

• Analytics and Engagement Tracking: Use measurable data such as page views, click-throughs, and time on page to connect communication directly to behavior change. This transforms communication costs into quantifiable savings.

• Efficiency and Strategic Redeployment: Reduce repetitive HR inquiries so teams can focus on higher-value initiatives such as retention strategy and workforce planning.

• Retention and Total Compensation Value: When employees understand and value their benefits, they recognize the full worth of total compensation. This strengthens satisfaction and reduces turnover.

‍Measuring the Return
‍Employers spend between $10,000 and $15,000 per employee annually on benefits, according to BLS and KFF benchmarks, using a conservative midpoint of $12,000 ties directly back to the headline¹². For a company with 500 employees, that is about $6 million each year in total benefits. If confusion or misuse accounts for 5 percent of that spend, $300,000 is lost annually. Add $20,000 in recovered HR time and $50,000 in improved retention savings, and the potential value recovered rises to $370,000. After accounting for an estimated $75,000 investment in modern benefits infrastructure, the result is a net recovered value of $295,000 — nearly a 4:1 return on investment. The pattern holds across organizations: clarity saves money.

The Bottom Line
‍Confusion in benefits communication is a measurable financial problem that directly affects profitability. By improving clarity, accessibility, and engagement, CFOs can turn one of their largest fixed costs into a controllable, measurable source of value.

At SwellSpace, we help organizations transform their benefits communication into a true business asset. Our platform gives employees, dependents, retirees, and candidates barrier-free access to the information they need, while giving HR and Finance the clarity they deserve.

Learn more about how SwellSpace can be your partner in making benefits communication smarter, more measurable, and more valuable to your organization.
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References

1. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Employer Costs for Employee Compensation – March 2025. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec_06132025.htm
2. Kaiser Family Foundation (2024). Employer Health Benefits Survey 2024. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/2024-employer-health-benefits-survey
3. Mercer (2024). Health and Benefit Strategies Survey.
4. Qualtrics (2024). The True Cost of Employee Turnover. https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/employee/cost-of-employee-turnover
5. HR Morning (2024). The Real Cost of Employee Turnover. https://www.hrmorning.com/articles/real-cost-employee-turnover
6. HR&P (2023). Replacing Employees Costs Big Dollars. https://hrp.net/hrp-blog/replacing-employees-costs-big-dollars
7. Xref (2024). Reducing Employee Turnover and Attrition. https://www.xref.com/blog/reducing-employee-turnover-and-attrition