How Tracking Decision Support as a Benefits KPI Empowers Your HR Strategy 

Because your employees shouldn’t need a Ph.D in benefits to know what they’re enrolling in or feel confident in their elections. 

Our 2025 Benefits Insights Report highlighted an ongoing challenge: 86% of employees still feel confused about their benefits. So an important question remains: How does HR run a successful AE despite benefits confusion?  

The answer lies in personalization and human-centered design. 

That’s why it’s critical for HR professionals to think about a new KPI: the impact of benefits decision support within your benefits administration platform.  

Because despite feeling confused about their benefits, 79% of employees say they’re “confident” or “extremely confident” in their enrollment decisions when personalized decision support is in play—proving employees don’t need a PhD in benefits (or someone from HR sitting next to them) to be satisfied with their elections.   

Defining measurable outcomes of decision support 

Businessolver’s decision support tool guides employees through the enrollment experience, using simple, easy-to-understand language. It asks the user a series of questions about their financial, emotional, and physical needs, then recommends the best fit based on what benefits they have access to (based on their eligibility).  

Check out the KPIs below to help define what measurable outcomes around decision support make sense for your organization: 
 

• Decision Support Adoption: Track how many employees are currently utilizing your decision support tool. For reference, within Benefitsolver, 69% of employees use decision support at enrollment when it’s available to them. If you’re not hitting your target usage, consider how changes to the user-experience or awareness about how it supports employees could improve adoption.  
• Claims History and User Data Opt In: Look into how many employees are opting to use their claims history. For reference, 89% of employees opt in to use their claims history within Benefitsolver, helping guide them to a best-fit match. If usage is low, consider how you can educate employees on the benefits of using that data to help guide them towards coverage that matters.  
• Plan Steerage: How effective is your decision support tool at directing employees to certain plans? We’ve found that employees are 119% more likely to enroll in an HDHP and 129% more likely to also elect an HSA when decision support is available. For an 11,000-life group, having an 119% lift in steerage to cost-effective health plans can save the organization over $3,000,000 in premium spend alone.   
• Satisfaction with Experience: Consider implementing a short survey after enrollment within your decision support tool. This will help your team measure the overall confidence and satisfaction of the experience and offerings. Based on this data, your team can strategically evaluate any pivots you need to make for next year.  
• Employee Responses: While you can’t see employee-specific responses from a decision support tool, you should be able to see aggregate data. Consider evaluating these comprehensive insights. While this KPI doesn’t necessarily track the overall success of your decision support tool, it does provide valuable insight into your employees’ unique financial, physical, and emotional needs. You can use this info and compare it to satisfaction rates—which can help where any gaps in coverage may exist.  

Hot Tip: If your current benefits administration platform lacks decision support capabilities such as integrating claims data, plan steerage, or simply the ability to track of the tool, it may be worth exploring how a new platform could better support your employees. 

Decision support as an empathy indicator 

At the end of the day, benefits decision support data offers a window to understanding how your benefit options align with employee expectations and needs. By leveraging KPIs to analyze the effectiveness of your decision support model, your team can gain meaningful insights into how confident and supported employees feel when making decisions that impact their physical, financial, and emotional well-being. 

When employees feel their needs are met with empathy and support, the results are clear: productivity rises, turnover drops, and your organization sees a significant ROI on its benefits investment. That’s a win for your employees, your HR team, and your entire organization. 

Curious to see how Businessolver’s industry-leading decision support tool guides employees towards best-fit benefits that meet their unique financial, physical, and emotional needs? Register for a live demo to get an inside look at how you could transform your employee’s experience today.