Employee Benefits | For Business Leaders

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For many businesses, employee benefits are one of the largest recurring expenses outside of payroll. Yet the question leadership teams often ask is surprisingly simple: "Is what we're paying reasonable?"

 

Answering that question requires more than looking at the renewal increase.

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The numbers are getting harder to ignore:

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According to KFF's 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey, the average annual premium for employer-sponsored health coverage reached $9,325 for single coverage and $26,993 for family coverage. Family premiums increased 6% in one year and have increased 26% since 2020. Employees themselves contributed an average of $6,850 annually toward family coverage.

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Those averages are substantial, but they don't tell the whole story. KFF found that 17% of covered workers were at firms where the annual single premium was at least 20% above the national average, while 19% were at firms where it was less than 80% of the average. For family coverage, the distribution was similar. In other words: There isn't one "market rate." There are markets.

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Benchmarking is more complicated than comparing premiums:

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A benefits program shouldn't be evaluated solely on the amount appearing on the renewal document.

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Leadership should consider:

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• Employer cost per employee

• Employee contribution

• Deductibles and out-of-pocket exposure

• Provider networks

• Plan participation

• Funding arrangement

• Pharmacy strategy

• Ancillary benefits

• Retirement benefits

• Workforce demographics

• Industry

• Geographic footprint

• Overall compensation strategy

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Firm size matters, too. In 2025, average family premiums were $26,054 at firms with 10–199 workers compared with $27,280 at larger firms. Employees at smaller firms also contributed considerably more toward family coverage on average—$8,889 versus $6,227. That makes peer selection important. A 75-person manufacturer shouldn't necessarily judge its benefits strategy against a 5,000-person technology company.

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Benefits are bigger than health insurance:

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The broader benefits picture matters as well. BLS reported that 72% of private-industry workers had access to retirement benefits in March 2025, with access ranging from 59% among workers at establishments with fewer than 100 employees to 90% at establishments with 500 or more. That means benefits benchmarking can encompass far more than medical premiums. It can include retirement, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, voluntary benefits and the overall employee experience.

 

So when should a company look at the market?

 

Not every increase means a company has a problem, but certain situations warrant a closer look:

 

• Costs have risen significantly.

• The company has grown substantially.

• The workforce has changed.

• Employees are increasingly dissatisfied with their benefits.

• The company is having difficulty recruiting or retaining talent.

• The current program hasn't been meaningfully benchmarked in years.

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A market review doesn't automatically mean changing providers. It means understanding the alternatives.

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Where Ladero Ridge fits: 

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Ladero Ridge helps businesses find and evaluate the professionals who can answer these questions. We don't sell insurance. Instead, we serve as a resource for businesses looking to understand their options and connect with qualified benefits professionals, brokerages, and other providers. 

Employee Benefits | 2026 Industry Perspective

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The employee benefits market is entering another period of adjustment. Healthcare costs remain elevated. Employers are examining funding arrangements and plan design. Prescription drug spending remains a major consideration. And companies are increasingly looking at benefits as part of a broader strategy involving compensation, recruiting and employee retention.

The result isn't one universal solution. It's a market with more choices—and more variables.

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Costs remain the central issue:

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KFF reported that family health premiums increased 6% in 2025 to $26,993, while single premiums increased 5% to $9,325. The five-year picture is even more striking: average family premiums increased 26% from 2020 through 2025.

 

That puts employers in a familiar position:

How do you control costs without simply shifting more of the cost to employees?

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Fully insured isn't the only conversation anymore:

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Employers and advisors continue to evaluate different approaches to funding benefits. Depending on company size, workforce characteristics, risk tolerance and other factors, businesses may consider:

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• Fully insured plans

• Self-funded arrangements

• Level-funded plans

• High-deductible health plans

• HSA strategies

• Alternative network structures

• ICHRA and other individual-market approaches

• Different employee contribution structures

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None is inherently right for every employer. The relevant question is:

Which structure fits this particular organization?

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Don't overlook the mechanics:

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Some opportunities are much less dramatic than switching insurance carriers. A Premium Only Plan, or POP, under Section 125 can allow eligible employees to pay certain insurance premiums on a pre-tax basis when properly established and administered. That can potentially reduce employees' taxable income and may create payroll-tax savings for employers. Paylocity describes a POP as a Section 125 cafeteria-plan arrangement that can apply to certain employer-sponsored insurance premiums. The important point isn't that every employer needs a POP. It's that benefits strategy contains more moving parts than the headline premium.

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Benefits are also a talent issue:

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Benefits increasingly sit at the intersection of finance and people strategy.

BLS data shows that medical and retirement benefits are widely available to private-industry workers, but access varies significantly by employer size and occupation. That means employers have to balance:

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• Cost

• Employee affordability

• Coverage

• Recruiting

• Retention

• Administrative complexity

• Long-term sustainability

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The most expensive benefit package isn't necessarily the most competitive. The cheapest isn't necessarily the most effective. The objective is to find the right balance for the organization.

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Benchmarking remains the starting point:

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Industry resources such as Milliman's benefits benchmarking tools and MployerAdvisor's industry guides illustrate the value of comparing an employer's program against relevant peers rather than relying exclusively on national averages. 

 

And 2026 benchmarking research continues to examine changes in funding strategy, employer priorities and plan design. The takeaway is not that employers should adopt the latest trend. It's that employers should understand the choices available to them.

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Where Ladero Ridge fits:

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Ladero Ridge helps businesses find the right professionals to evaluate their benefits strategy. That could mean benchmarking an existing plan, exploring alternative funding, evaluating a new broker, reviewing employee benefits more broadly, or simply getting another perspective. 

Industry Review | HCM & Workforce Technology

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Modern HCM platforms can encompass payroll, HR administration, time and attendance, benefits administration, recruiting, performance management, workforce analytics, employee self-service, compliance support and increasingly, artificial intelligence. 

 

That breadth creates opportunity. It also creates a problem:

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How does a business know what it actually needs?

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HCM has become the operating system for people data For many organizations, the HCM platform sits at the center of the employee lifecycle. A new employee enters the system. Payroll pulls information from it. Benefits connect to it. Managers use it. Employees access it. Finance depends on payroll data. HR uses it for reporting.

 

That makes the platform more consequential than a typical software purchase. It can become infrastructure. ISG's 2025 research found that 69% of organizations globally had HR core systems running on SaaS or hybrid-cloud models, with 83% expecting to adopt those approaches by the end of 2027. The direction is clear: HR technology is increasingly cloud-based and interconnected.

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The market is also crowded

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Businesses today can evaluate established enterprise platforms, mid-market HCM providers, payroll-centered systems, emerging platforms and specialized point solutions. ISG's 2025 HCM research evaluates a broad field of providers across dimensions including product experience and customer experience. Its research demonstrates the breadth of the market rather than suggesting that one platform is appropriate for every organization. That's important. There is no universal "best HCM."

 

There is only a better or worse fit for a particular organization's requirements.

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Integration may matter more than features. A platform can have an impressive feature list and still disappoint if it doesn't work well with the rest of the organization's technology ecosystem. ISG's 2025 research identifies integration as a major differentiator and reports that organizations with fully integrated HR ecosystems reported roughly twice the ROI of more siloed peers.

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That makes the HCM evaluation process broader than: "Which system has the most features?" Instead, businesses should ask:

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• Does it integrate with our accounting platform?

• Does payroll work across our states?

• Can employees actually use it?

• How good is the implementation process?

• How much administrative work remains?

• How flexible is reporting?

• What happens when the company grows?

• How well does it handle benefits?

• How does it handle compliance?

• What is the total cost of ownership?

• What happens to our data if we leave?

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And then there is AI

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AI is becoming a meaningful part of HCM discussions:

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SHRM reported that 43% of organizations were using AI in HR tasks in 2025, up from 26% in 2024. Recruiting was the most common area of application. But adoption shouldn't be confused with effectiveness. SHRM reported that only 43% of HR professionals and executives rated their organization's HR technology as effective in its 2025 State of the Workplace research. And SHRM's reporting on AI implementation found that only 17% of HR professionals described their organization's AI implementation as highly successful. The implication is important:

 

Buying technology is not the same as realizing value from technology.

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Implementation, adoption, training, integration and change management remain critical. What should a business evaluate?

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A thoughtful HCM review should consider at least five areas:

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• Functionality

• Does the system actually solve the problems the organization has?

• Integration

• Does it connect effectively with payroll, accounting, benefits and other systems?

• User Experience

• Will employees and managers actually use it?

• Implementation

• How much time, internal effort and outside support will be required?

• Economics

• What is the total cost over the life of the relationship—not simply the initial price?

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Where Ladero Ridge fits:

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Ladero Ridge is provider-agnostic. We aren't tied to one HCM platform or vendor.

Our role is to help businesses understand what they need and connect with appropriate HCM professionals and providers. For some companies, the answer may be a new platform. For others, it may be improving the current system. And sometimes the best decision is to do nothing. The goal is not to sell an HCM system. It's to help a business find the right solution for its situation.

Business Strategy | Fractional HR, Finance, Accounting & Sales

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There was a time when hiring a senior executive generally meant one thing: Hire them full-time.

 

That model is changing.

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Businesses can increasingly access experienced professionals on a fractional or outsourced basis—giving smaller and mid-sized organizations access to expertise without necessarily taking on the cost and commitment of a full-time executive hire.

The model has expanded well beyond the fractional CFO. Today, businesses can find fractional:

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• HR leaders

• CFOs

• Controllers

• Accounting professionals

• Sales leaders

• Revenue executives

• Marketing leaders

• Operations executives

• IT leaders

• Executive-level advisors

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Why the model makes sense:

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Consider a company that needs senior HR leadership but isn't ready for a six-figure-plus full-time executive. Or a growing business that needs financial controls and forecasting but doesn't need a full-time CFO. Or a company with a strong sales team that needs experienced sales leadership to build process, forecasting and accountability. The traditional options were often hire full-time or go without.

 

Fractional services create another option. Access the expertise when the business needs it. Expertise doesn't always need to be full-time. This is particularly relevant for growing businesses. A company might need a CFO during a period of rapid expansion, acquisition, fundraising or financial restructuring. It might need an HR leader during a period of rapid hiring, organizational change or benefits restructuring. It might need a sales executive to establish a repeatable sales process before committing to a permanent leadership hire. The need can be real even when the full-time position isn't.

 

The market is also changing. The broader workforce is becoming more specialized. SHRM reported that 28% of organizations surveyed in 2025 said full-time positions required candidates to possess new skills, while 47% of those organizations said existing roles were being modified to incorporate those skills. Four out of five organizations reported difficulty finding candidates with those new skills. That creates a talent problem.

 

Businesses don't simply need more people. They increasingly need specific expertise.

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A fractional model can sometimes provide access to that expertise while a company determines what its long-term organizational structure should look like. Fractional doesn't mean inexpensive. This distinction matters. A fractional executive isn't necessarily a cheaper version of a full-time employee. You're paying for experience, specialization and flexibility. The relevant calculation is often what does this expertise cost? Versus, what does not having this expertise cost the business?

 

A strong fractional CFO may help a company build financial controls.

 

A fractional HR leader may improve hiring, employee relations and benefits strategy.

 

A fractional sales leader may create process and accountability.

 

The value comes from the outcome—not simply the hourly rate. When should a company consider fractional support?

It may be worth exploring when:

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• The business has outgrown its current capabilities

• A full-time executive isn't yet justified

• The company needs specialized expertise

• Leadership is overloaded

• A major project requires temporary expertise

• The company is preparing for growth

• A permanent executive search needs to happen first

• The business wants an outside perspective

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Where Ladero Ridge fits:

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Fractional services are part of the broader professional network Ladero Ridge can help businesses navigate. We can help companies identify and connect with professionals across HR, accounting, finance, sales, operations and other specialized functions. The goal isn't to push a fractional model. It's to help businesses understand what type of expertise they need and where to find it.