Empathy, the technology company transforming how the world plans for and navigates life’s hardest moments, today released its 2026 Workplace Benefits Report. The new research reveals how workplace benefits are falling short during life’s most disruptive moments. While many employers plan to expand offerings and investment in 2026, the report finds benefit strategies often struggle to deliver measurable impact, with current benefits underperforming, driving low utilization, and misalignment among employees and HR leaders alike. It spotlights a critical shift: benefits success is now defined by support during major life events, with bereavement care as the clearest, most urgent opportunity to boost utilization, and real-time impact while improving alignment for both employers and employees. In fact, 84% of employers say they plan to expand bereavement support this year, while 95% of employees say bereavement-related benefits are valuable to them.
“From this research, it’s clear that employers have a unique opportunity to create benefit programs that meaningfully support employees during life’s most disruptive moments,” said Ron Gura, Co-Founder & CEO, Empathy. “Bereavement stands out as the clearest, most urgent entry point, not just as a fringe benefit, but as a core example of how employers can move beyond more generic offerings toward more relevant yet comprehensive support.”
Key Findings Highlight The Benefits Alignment Gap
The 2026 Workplace Benefits Report reveals widespread sentiment among employers and employees that current benefits often fail to meet real-life needs and lived experiences:
- 80% of employers expect benefits budgets to increase in 2026, but most increases are modest, driving greater selectivity and focus on outcomes.
- Employers are clear about the problems they want benefits to address, with 34% wanting to improve employee wellbeing and 30% wanting to provide competitive benefits packages.
- 60% of employers, and more than half (52%) of employees, believe that existing benefits are only somewhat or not at all aligned with current needs, highlighting a clear gap between investment and potential impact.
- Utilization and understanding of benefits remain a challenge, with employees citing difficulty understanding benefits (27%), accessing information (23%), and navigating complexity (23%) highlighting why benefits often fail at the moment of need.
- Employers and employees are aligned on where benefits should expand in 2026: mental health, financial wellness, flexibility, and life-event support.
- Nearly half of employees (46%) expecting formal employer support during major disruptions. At the same time, nearly 1 in 3 employers say supporting employees through major life events is a top challenge.
- 95% of employees value bereavement-related benefits, with those who experienced a major life-event or disruption in the past two years, such as the death of a loved one, serious illness, caregiving, or pregnancy loss, over 1.5× more likely to identify bereavement and grief support as one of their biggest unmet benefits needs.
- 84% of employers say they are planning to expand bereavement support in the coming year.
Life events bring forth significant emotional, physical, and financial disruptions that impact all areas of life, including work. These moments serve as the organizing principle for effective benefits design, because they allow employers to support employees in times of real need. By centering offerings around critical events across the employee journey like bereavement, caregiving, serious illness and other major life transitions, employers can boost employee engagement, retention and overall performance, while building greater confidence in their employee programs. This shift redefines benefits not as static transactions, but as dynamic expressions of care that evolve with employees’ real lives, strengthening both organizational readiness and long-term resilience.
To read the full 2026 Workplace Benefits Report and all its findings, visit empathy.com.
