Attracting & Retaining Talent
Turn your health plan into a hiring and retention advantage
In a tight labor market, benefits are no longer a back-office line item — they’re one of the first things a candidate compares and one of the last reasons a good employee stays. A weak or shrinking plan quietly costs you offers accepted, hires retained, and institutional knowledge walking out the door. The right funding strategy lets you offer richer benefits at a cost you can sustain, so your plan recruits and retains for you instead of working against you.
See How It Works ↓Taft Hartley is just one of the health insurance solutions we offer for the employee benefit challenge
Here are the 4 in which we specialize and why 70% of clients who request a quote say yes.
Taft Hartley is a multi-employer health insurance arrangement that pools businesses and sole proprietors together to improve rates through shared risk pooling. The money people pay for their health coverage goes into a trust and is regulated by ERISA laws. This requires that money in the fund only go out for medical claims and administration — not for executive profits. The main advantage of this plan is its premium stability where every business gets the same premium increases whether they are healthy or sick. Many clients report smoother claims administration and an enhanced customer service experience. Some clients have saved over 50% on their health premiums.
PEOs are a total business solution that help assist in 5 areas — payroll, HR, compliance, employee benefits, and (sometimes) workers' compensation — which typically helps them outcompete comparable businesses not in a PEO. Due to their structure, they provide unmatched compliance risk management that cannot be duplicated outside of a PEO. For many businesses, they also provide unbeatable health rates and voluntary Fortune 500 employee benefits options without enrollment and participation requirements. Our recommended PEO partners all have client retention rates between 91.8 to 95% and do not interfere with how ownership wants to run their business. Some clients have saved as much as 52% on their medical through PEOs.
Over the last decade, the popularity of self-funded plans has grown significantly as fully insured rates have skyrocketed. For businesses considered small groups, self funded options allow businesses to be rewarded with lower health-based rates that tend to be lower than fully-insured options. What makes these plans so effective is their customizability. Employers can choose their own TPA, pharmacy benefit manager, specialty med carveouts, direct primary care, etc. This level of customization can slash annual premiums with typical savings of 10 to 30%. 50% of employers with 20+ employees enrolled can expect savings of at least 25%.
For small groups, fully insured options are based simply on zip code and date of birth. As a result of not being able to determine rates in any other way, the carrier has to assume below average health. This tends to make fully insured advantageous for unhealthy groups. For large groups (ie 50+ FTEs), rates are still health-based. That said, unlike self funded plans, claims data tends to be not shared at all or highly delayed. The advantage for large groups is that the network and claims administrator are the same.
How a NY Real Estate Firm Turned Benefits Into a Recruiting Advantage — and Dodged a 96% Premium Hike
Company Profile: A New York real estate company competing for experienced agents and operations staff in a market where compensation packages are scrutinized closely. Benefits had become a deciding factor in whether candidates accepted offers and whether top performers stayed — right as the company faced a punishing renewal.
Prior Challenges
- A renewal quoted at a 96% premium increase — a budget-breaking jump that threatened to force a benefits downgrade at the worst possible time.
- A plan that was no longer competitive for recruiting: candidates were comparing offers, and benefits were costing the company accepted offers.
- Retention risk: experienced staff are expensive to replace, and a weaker plan made it easier for competitors to poach them.
- The classic trap — cut the plan to control cost (and lose talent), or absorb the increase (and blow the budget).
The Outcome
- Avoided the 96% increase entirely by moving to a funding structure not tied to the company’s own claims experience.
- Upgraded the plan into a genuine recruiting tool — richer coverage that strengthens offers and retention rather than undermining them.
- Modeled benefits-as-recruiting value worth 5.8x to 31x the premium savings alone, once reduced turnover and improved offer-acceptance are counted.
- Roughly 38.9% (~$2.12MM) projected savings over six years versus staying on the comparable fully-insured track.
Read the full breakdown: NY Real Estate talent-retention case study →
Why Benefits Win (and Keep) Talent
Pay gets a candidate to the table; benefits often close the deal and decide who stays. A strong, stable health plan signals that the company invests in its people — and because the cost of one unwanted departure (recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity) routinely runs well into five figures, even a modest improvement in retention can outweigh the entire benefits spend.
The lever isn’t spending more — it’s funding smarter. The arrangements above (Taft-Hartley, PEO, self-funded, fully-insured) each let you raise plan quality while controlling cost, so benefits become a reason people join and stay rather than a number you’re forced to cut.
Model the Value for Your Team
Use our free Benefits ROI Calculator to translate a benefits upgrade into retention and hiring outcomes, and the Health Funding Projector to compare funding paths side by side. No login, no email gate.
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