A 20-minute watch.

Steven McKay is head of employee benefits at Mearns & Co., an IFA and employee benefits consultant, which, outside its wealth management business, includes benefits advice for firms in areas such as insurance, pensions, benefits, and wellbeing. Steven chats Lee Robertson through the landscape of flexible and core benefits, and what the future holds.

Steven starts with need for specialists in this area: “To get it right you have to specialise in it. We see stuff coming from other advisers where the small technical points missed were really important. If you dabble in it, it’s not enough”.

Broadly, the market for benefits has seen a shift towards much more flexible provisions:

“More and more we see HR teams coming to us and saying ‘we want to give employees a pot of cash for them to do what they want with it’. So really broad-based flexible benefits; no core benefits”.

McKay also points to changing demographics influencing the trend: “Younger generations see less value in being protected. They don’t have a house; don’t have families to protect in the same way. They want something more suited to renting; the city lifestyle. Health and wellbeing has seen a massive kick just now compared to what it used to be.”

Also discussed in the interview are headwinds and tailwinds for benefits, and sister company Lightbox and the benefits portal it provides HR / rewards teams.

If you missed Steven’s 3 Questions, check it out here.