This is the second year looking at employee benefit trends amid an ongoing pandemic, and the “new normal” is already different from what it was at the start of 2021. COVID-19 vaccines are now widely available, leading many employers to implement specific return-to-work policies based on vaccination status. The emergence of new variants has collided with widespread deferred care to introduce new factors in health care costs. Meanwhile, employees quitting their jobs at historic rates began the era of “The Great Resignation.” The resulting talent shortage, along with the expansion of remote work, has employers reimagining recruitment and retention strategies.

This report aims to illustrate how these challenges are shaping employer benefit plan design and employee decisions by analyzing enrollments from 361 large employers and more than 4.7 million employees across the last five years.1 Additional insights from employer and employee surveys also provide perspective into the context in which these decisions were made.