How do you build a benefits plan that goes the distance?
It’s a hot button question in the Canadian benefits landscape in 2025. This year has seen no shortage of change for employees and employers alike, including economic uncertainty and a strained healthcare system.
According to research by GreenShield Canada:
- 42% of Canadians say the economic downturn downturn is negatively impacting their health
- Over 6.5 million Canadians don’t have a primary care provider, and
- 2.5 million can’t get the mental health support that they need.
While these numbers paint a picture of the real health challenges that Canadians are facing, there is also a major opportunity here for employers to be proactive and tailor benefits that fit their employees.
But can you create a plan that’s both forward-thinking and cost-effective?
In the webinar “Is Your Benefits Plan Built to Last?”, Kimberley LeComte, President of Rise Health, spoke with GreenShield experts Simeeta Daas and Liza Bugar, to dig deeper into how to build a people-first benefits strategy that will withstand rising costs, shifting employee needs, and a million other changes in between.
Here are three of Kimberley’s smart strategies to build Canadian benefits plans that last—even in the face of constant change.
Smart strategy #1: Understand your employees
Do you really know which benefits your employees are using?
As you revisit your organization’s benefits strategy, Kimberely advises to take a look at who your employees are, how they use benefits, and what they value most. This will help you shape your employee value proposition—why your employees choose to work for your company and stay engaged.
“Understanding your employees can be an important differentiator for you,” she says. “It can help you really lean into being a caring employer and showing employees how you can help them to live healthier, fuller lives. I think it’s a really lovely cultural attribute for a plan sponsor to offer.”
For example, you might notice that you have a larger aging population in your workforce that uses benefits more frequently. And maybe their goal is to live a long, healthy life as they move into their senior years—in the face of health challenges that come with that life stage.
Or maybe your employee demographics are largely Millennial or Gen Z. An emphasis on benefits that include mental health and telehealth might be a major draw for those generations to stay in your organization.
Whether you gather this employee data through a platform or a survey, these insights will help you better understand how to not only care for your employees, but how to retain them as well.
Plus, you’ll stand out in a competitive market to hire top talent. When it comes to career decisions, salary is still a driving factor, but benefits are a close second. In the 2025 Canada Salary Guide from Robert Half, over half of job seekers cited better benefits as a major reason they’re looking for a new position.
Smart strategy #2: Consider the payer-provider model
As you’re thinking more intentionally about your employees’ unique health needs, it’s also time to consider a proactive benefits model.
Kimberley admits that this shift is hard for most Canadians. “If you think about our healthcare system, it's very reactive,” she says. “You get sick, you go to the doctor, you've got ten minutes to tell them about your issue, and you'll be out of the doctor's office after you waited for forty minutes.”
So how can you innovate and make sure your benefits plan isn’t following the same reactive pattern?
A solution that Kimberley highlights is the payer-provider or “payvider” model. This model integrates coverage and care in one place. As Kimberley says: “It’s a more fulsome approach to health.”
GreenShield is one health and benefits company that operates under the payer-provider model. This means that they offer insurance, administer benefits and pay claims as a “payer.” At the same time, they also offer health services like mental health, pharmacy, telemedicine, and chronic disease management as a “provider.”
So what are the benefits of the payer-provider model? Here are a few advantages that came up in Kimberley’s discussion with GreenShield:
- Better outcomes focus: When the same organization handles both care and costs, there's a stronger incentive to keep people healthy rather than just process more claims.
- Integrated experience: Mental health, pharmacy, chronic condition support, and virtual care become part of one connected system built around member needs.
- Filling healthcare gaps: With many Canadians struggling to find family doctors, this model provides virtual visits, quick assessments, and coordinated care directly through benefits plans.
As you take stock of your employees’ benefits needs, it’s important to consider what’s most accessible for everyone. And according to a report from GreenShield, 75% of Canadian employees want easier access to health professionals.
There are a lot of advantages to the payer-provider model, including an easy-to-use, digital-first approach. Technology helps break down barriers so your employees can get the care they need, whenever and wherever they need it.
Smart strategy #3: Invest in digital solutions for your changing workforce
A digital-first benefits plan isn’t only about access to care. It’s also about supporting the younger generations as they enter the workforce and move up in their careers.
After all, Generation Z and Generation Alpha have grown up with smartphones and the Internet at their fingertips.
Gen Z are already well on their way up the corporate ladder, with Gen Z making up one in ten managers by the end of 2025, according to Glassdoor. On top of this, Gen Z now outnumbers Baby Boomers in the workplace.
Kimberley’s advice: start pivoting your benefits strategy now to focus on digital-first service so you can connect with Gen Z and also meet the next generation, Gen Alpha, as they enter the workforce.
“I think it's really important to meet people where they are. And I think there's going to be an increased demand for access to technology, even from an employee perspective and from a user perspective,” Kimberley says.
She also emphasizes that while you don’t need to have digital solutions to play in the benefits space, these tools and platforms will help you attract and retain top talent.
“This is what you need to do to win the war for talent,” Kimberely points out. “So as much as [adopting digital tools] can be uncomfortable and sort of awkward, pioneering in this space is really important for the future.”
But adopting a digital-first approach isn’t just for younger generations. In the webinar, Kimberley also spoke with Simeeta and Liza about the role of supporting all generations with benefits technology.
According to research from Blue Cross, one-third of Canadians report using a combination of virtual and in-person solutions, while 36% find it easier and faster to book appointments. And for those who live in remote areas or face barriers getting to in-person appointments, having a virtual care option is a game changer — telehealth reduces transportation limitations that many Canadians face by 52%.
No matter their age or life stage, once an employee has been educated by their employer and guided by care coordinators on how to use a benefits platform, they’re more likely to use their benefits and build healthier habits. And, as Kimberley says, that means shifting from a reactive mindset to a more proactive one, and—hopefully—preventing future health issues.
Next steps: How your organization can thrive with smarter benefits
The only thing constant when it comes to benefits in Canada? Change.
And even though we don’t have a crystal ball to predict what comes next, keep Kimberley’s advice in mind as you create a strategy that works for your organization (you can also watch the webinar, on-demand).
If you meet your employees where they are, consider more accessible models like payer-provider, and invest in a digital-first approach, you’ll be as prepared as you can be for the rest of 2025—and beyond.
Ready to build a smarter, more resilient benefits plan? Rise Health is one digital solution that can help.
Whether you’re working with a trusted benefits advisor or exploring benefits for the first time, Rise Health provides flexible options that fit your needs. It’s all integrated directly into Rise’s all-in-one HR and payroll platform.
Want to see the platform in action? You can learn more about Rise Health right here.
