Our CEO, Rob Whalen, was interviewed for Intelligent Enterprise Leaders Alliance Market Study: AI & The Future of Work about the future of the HR and benefits space.
Insights from PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen — and a practical guide for HR and Finance leaders ready to move beyond the status quo.
Most organizations know their total rewards strategy needs work. They just aren’t sure where to start — or whether the investment will actually move the needle on the two things that matter most: employee engagement and turnover.
The data suggests urgency. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report, only 23% of employees globally are engaged at work. In the United States, that number sits at 33% — figures that have remained stubbornly flat despite years of incremental benefit improvements and compensation increases. At the same time, HR.com’s 2025–26 State of Employee Retention report found that compensation and lack of meaningful incentives are consistently cited as top for total-rewards-related drivers of voluntary turnover.
The conclusion is uncomfortable but clear: tweaking existing programs at the margins is not enough. What’s needed is a genuine rethink — one that starts with understanding what employees actually want, and builds outward from there.
PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen recently shared his perspective on this challenge as part of the Intelligent Enterprise Leaders Alliance Market Study: AI & The Future of Work. His insights, expanded here, offer a practical framework for HR and Finance leaders ready to redesign their total rewards strategy from the ground up.
Total rewards has traditionally been defined as the combination of compensation, benefits, work-life programs, performance and recognition, and development opportunities. For decades, the standard approach was relatively simple: offer competitive base pay, solid healthcare, a retirement match, and maybe a few perks. That model worked when the workforce was more homogeneous and employee expectations were narrower.
Neither of those conditions exists today.
Today’s workforce spans as many as five generations, each with fundamentally different financial priorities, life circumstances, and definitions of value. A 24-year-old managing student debt has almost nothing in common, benefits-wise, with a 54-year-old trying to maximize their 403(b) before retirement. A parent of two school-age children values flexible leave and dependent care support. A recent immigrant may prioritize emergency savings access over gym subsidies. A mission-driven employee in a nonprofit may care more about leave sharing than a quarterly bonus.
No single standardized benefits package can serve all of them equally well — and employees know it. Aon research shows competitive pay and meaningful benefits are among the top factors employees cite when choosing an employer. Mercer research indicates 68% of employees say they plan to stay with their employer when total rewards meet their expectations. The inverse is equally true: when they don’t, they leave.
“Organizations should start by talking with their employees. Use surveys to fully understand the voice of the employee — and to get feedback on where your current rewards do not meet their needs.”
— Rob Whalen, CEO, PTO Exchange
The most common mistake organizations make when redesigning total rewards is starting with programs instead of people. They look at what competitors are offering, pick a few new benefits to add, announce them at open enrollment, and wonder why engagement scores don’t improve.
Rob Whalen’s first recommendation is deliberately foundational: start by talking with your employees.
"Organizations should start by talking with their employees," Whalen says. "They might start with an employee feedback survey to fully understand the voice of the employees and their needs — and to get feedback on where your current rewards do not meet their needs. Then, based on survey data, HR teams can reassess their benefits packages and adjust to ensure that the benefits being offered are benefits the workforce actually wants."
This sounds simple. In practice, most organizations skip it. HR.com’s research found that while more than half of organizations track why employees leave, less than half measure employee satisfaction or engagement — even though engagement is a leading indicator of future attrition. That gap represents a structural blind spot: organizations are managing to lagging data instead of proactively understanding what drives employees to stay.
Listening tools that actually work include:
The goal is not to ask employees what benefits they want and then give them a catalog. It is to understand the underlying financial pressures and life priorities that drive benefit decisions — and then design programs that address those realities.
Once organizations understand what their employees actually need, the next question is how to structure benefits to meet those needs without busting the budget. Rob Whalen’s answer: flexible benefits packages.
"Flexible benefits packages are a great cost-effective benefit solution that boosts engagement and reduces turnover," Whalen explains. "These packages can include traditional benefits like healthcare, and non-traditional benefits like convertible PTO. When employees feel like they have benefits that address their unique needs, they are more likely to utilize those benefits and stay with the company."
The data supports this. A Glassdoor survey found that 60–80% consider benefits important factor when it comes to influencing job decisions. LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report found that 94% of employees say they would stay longer if their company invested in their career development. And according to recent SHRM data, companies that offer personalized, flexible benefits report meaningfully higher retention and engagement than those offering standardized packages.
The challenge for most HR leaders is that "flexible benefits" sounds expensive. In reality, many of the most impactful flexible benefit options carry minimal or zero net cost to the employer. The key is designing programs that redirect existing compensation value rather than layering on new costs.
80% of employees prefer additional benefits over a pay raise. Flexibility — not cost — is the defining variable in competitive total rewards design.
When asked which employee wellness offerings he is most optimistic about, Rob Whalen identified three distinct but interconnected pillars. Together, they represent the leading edge of where total rewards strategy is heading — and where the ROI is clearest.
Mental health is no longer a specialized benefit — it is a baseline expectation. According to a McKinsey report, a majority of employees now prioritize mental health support. And the cost of ignoring it is significant: Gallup’s research found that global employee disengagement — closely tied to unaddressed mental health challenges — was associated with $438 billion in lost productivity in 2024 alone.
Organizations leading in this area are moving well beyond traditional Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). Whalen notes: "More organizations are implementing comprehensive mental health support systems, including counseling services and access to mental health professionals. Additional initiatives such as mental health days and destigmatizing discussions around mental wellness are also becoming more common."
High-impact mental health benefit investments include:
Financial stress is the most pervasive productivity killer in the modern workplace — and the one employers are most underequipped to address. According to a 2024 PYMTS survey, 78% of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck, and 72% say financial worry is their single greatest life stressor. Financial stress reduces focus, increases absenteeism, drives turnover, and undermines the effectiveness of every other wellness investment an organization makes.
Whalen is direct on this point: "Financial stress is a significant contributor to overall employee stress. More employers are looking at implementing financial wellness programs that provide financial education, access to financial planning resources, or student loan assistance."
What distinguishes effective financial wellness programs from nominal ones is relevance across the full workforce spectrum. A 401(k) education seminar matters to a 55-year-old but is largely irrelevant to a 27-year-old managing $47,000 in student loan debt. A student loan repayment benefit matters to early-career employees but does nothing for mid-career parents managing childcare costs. The most impactful financial wellness programs offer genuine choice — meeting every employee at their actual financial moment, not an assumed one.
This is precisely where convertible PTO becomes a strategic differentiator. Rather than adding new budget line items to address financial wellness, convertible PTO redirects value employees have already earned — unlocking it for retirement savings, student loan repayments, emergency cash, HSA contributions, or charitable giving. It is financial wellness by design, not by line item.
The third emerging pillar reflects a broader shift in how organizations define "wellness" — away from narrow physical health programs and toward holistic life support. Whalen points to the rise of Life Planning Accounts (LPAs) as a signal of this evolution: "Companies are beginning to offer Life Planning Accounts to support their employees’ work-life balance and wellness initiatives — providing access to benefits like nutrition counseling, gym memberships, and more."
This trend reflects something deeper: employees want employers to recognize that life happens at work and outside of it simultaneously. Caregiving responsibilities, financial transitions, health challenges, and major life events all affect performance and engagement. Organizations that build benefits structures acknowledging this reality earn genuine loyalty — not just compliance.
According to EY research, a significant share of employees say the workplace provides a sense of belonging. Benefits that recognize the whole person — not just the employee — are a direct investment in that sense of belonging.
Total rewards strategy is the comprehensive framework an organization uses to attract, engage, and retain employees — encompassing not just base compensation, but benefits, recognition, career development, and workplace experience. It matters because pay alone no longer drives loyalty. Mercer research found that employees who believe their total rewards meet their expectations are 68% more likely to stay. Those who don’t meet expectations leave — at an average replacement cost of 1.5x to 2.0x their annual salary (source: SHRM).
Look at leading indicators, not just lagging ones. If you’re only tracking turnover rates and exit interview data, you’re managing to outcomes that have already occurred. The most useful signals are: employee engagement scores, benefit utilization rates by demographic segment, stay interview findings, internal mobility rates, and Time-to-Fill for open roles. Organizations that track engagement as a primary metric — not just turnover — are better positioned to intervene before employees disengage and eventually leave.
The short answer: flexibility, financial support, and recognition that their lives are more complex than a standard benefits menu acknowledges. According to Aon’s 2025 Future of Total Rewards Survey, better-than-average pay and meaningful benefits is the top factor in employer choice. Gallup finds that non-financial rewards — including flexible hours, wellbeing support, and personalized recognition — are now critical to job satisfaction for 64% of employees. Across every generation, employees want benefits that actually address their current financial reality — not a generic package designed for someone else.
Convertible PTO is the rare benefit that serves both sides of the total rewards equation simultaneously. For employees, it provides personalized financial wellness — giving them the ability to self-direct the value of their unused earned PTO into retirement savings, student loan repayments, emergency cash, HSA contributions, charitable giving, or leave sharing. For employers, it reduces the accrued PTO liability sitting on the balance sheet, improves engagement, and requires no new budget. PTO Exchange, the only patented IRS-compliant platform of its kind, documents a 51.8% reduction in turnover among platform users — making it one of the highest-ROI additions any organization can make to its total rewards stack.
The ROI is measurable across multiple dimensions. Replacing one employee costs 1.5x–2.0x their annual salary when accounting for recruiting, onboarding, training, lost productivity, and team disruption. According to Gallup Research, disengaged employees cost the global economy $438 billion in lost productivity in 2024. In addition, organizations with high engagement report up to 21% higher profitability. The math is not complicated: investing in the right benefits costs far less than the turnover they prevent.
Lead with the liability, not the line item. Most CFOs are already aware that PTO accruals represent one of the fastest-growing liabilities on the balance sheet — compounding with every salary increase and every year employees don’t take time off. Total rewards programs that reduce that liability while simultaneously improving retention (and therefore reducing replacement costs) are self-funding arguments. Build a simple ROI model: take your average employee salary, multiply by 1.5x turnover replacement cost, and apply your current turnover rate. Then show how a 10–15% improvement in retention changes that number. That is the conversation that unlocks budget.
The key is designing for choice, not consensus. You cannot build one program that is equally meaningful to a 23-year-old Gen Z employee managing student debt and a 58-year-old Baby Boomer maximizing retirement contributions. But you can build a framework that gives both employees access to benefits that address their specific financial moment — and lets them choose. Convertible PTO is the clearest example of this principle in action: one benefit, six possible financial outcomes, every generation served. Pair that with flexibility in scheduling, mental health support, and transparent career development, and you have the foundation of a genuinely multi-generational total rewards strategy.
Translating these principles into practice requires moving beyond the standard benefits checklist. Here is what the most effective total rewards strategies share in common in 2025:
Annual benefits surveys, stay interviews, and segmented focus groups are non-negotiable starting points. More importantly, the findings are visibly incorporated into the benefits design. When employees see that their feedback changed the program, they engage more deeply with it.
Most employees dramatically underestimate the total value of their compensation package. Research consistently shows that when employees receive clear, personalized total rewards statements — showing the combined value of salary, benefits, PTO, retirement match, and other contributions — engagement and retention improve. Employees who feel fairly compensated are significantly more engaged and committed. Communication is not just a nice-to-have; it is a retention tool.
Financial stress is the common thread running through disengagement, absenteeism, and voluntary turnover across every industry and demographic. Organizations that address it directly — through student loan assistance, emergency savings access, retirement education, or convertible PTO — see measurably better outcomes than those that don’t. The benefit does not have to be expensive. It has to be relevant and accessible.
Physical health programs, mental health support, and financial wellness are not separate initiatives — they are interconnected systems. An employee dealing with financial stress is more likely to experience mental health challenges, which in turn affects physical health and workplace performance. Total rewards strategies that connect these dimensions — rather than managing them as isolated budget lines — produce compounding returns.
The workforce is not static. Benefits that were highly relevant three years ago may be largely irrelevant to the employees you have today. Leading organizations conduct annual benefits relevance audits, track utilization data by demographic segment, and adjust their programs accordingly. Treating total rewards as a living strategy — rather than an annual decision — is what separates organizations that continuously improve retention from those that are always reacting to it.
Of all the non-traditional benefits gaining traction in 2025, convertible PTO stands out for one reason: it addresses multiple total rewards objectives simultaneously, at no net cost to the employer.
PTO Exchange is the only patented, IRS-compliant benefit exchange platform that converts the value of unused earned paid time off into meaningful financial outcomes for employees — including retirement savings, student loan repayments, HSA contributions, charitable giving, and emergency cash out. It is not a cash advance, not an earned wage access product, and not a debt instrument. It redirects value employees have already earned, giving them choice and control over compensation they are owed.
From a total rewards perspective, convertible PTO delivers across all five pillars of an effective strategy:
The results speak for themselves. Based on PTO Exchange client feedback-- clients document a 51.8% reduction in turnover among platform users, a 98.8% client retention rate, and measurable PTO liability reduction across 150+ employer clients.
Fairway Mortgage documented a 57.2% lower turnover rate among employees who made a PTO exchange vs. those who did not. That is not a rounding error. That is a structural retention advantage.
Rethinking total rewards strategy is not a one-time initiative. It is an ongoing commitment to understanding what your workforce actually values — and building programs that deliver it.
The organizations winning the talent war in 2025 are not necessarily the ones with the largest benefits budgets. They are the ones that listened to their employees, designed programs around real financial needs, and communicated the full value of what they offer clearly and consistently.
If your current strategy is not driving the engagement and retention outcomes you need, the starting point is not a new vendor or a bigger budget. It is a conversation — with your employees, with your Finance leadership, and with your benefits providers — about what is actually working and what your people genuinely need.
To learn how PTO Exchange can strengthen your total rewards strategy — reducing PTO liability, improving financial wellness, and driving measurable retention outcomes — visit ptoexchange.com or request a demo today.
Where Unused Time Becomes Unlimited Possibility.
INTERVIEW Q&A:
What advice do you have for employers and HR teams looking to rethink their organizations’ total rewards strategy to boost engagement and reduce turnover?
Rob Whalen: Organizations should start by talking with their employees. They might start with an employee feedback survey to fully understand the voice of the employees and their needs and to get feedback on where your current rewards do not meet their needs. Then, based on survey data, HR teams can reassess their benefits packages and adjust to ensure that the benefits being offered are benefits the workforce wants.
Flexible benefits packages are a great cost-effective benefit solution that boosts engagement and reduces turnover. These packages can include traditional benefits like healthcare benefits, and non-traditional benefits like convertible PTO. Flexible benefits packages can cater to a unique variety of employee needs. When employees feel like they have benefits that address their unique needs, they are more likely to utilize those benefits and stay with the company.
What employee wellness offerings and initiatives are you currently most optimistic about?
Rob Whalen: Several employee wellness offerings and initiatives are gaining traction and showing promise in promoting overall well-being in the workplace through inclusive wellness programs. Recognizing that wellness needs vary among individuals, organizations increasingly tailor wellness offerings to meet diverse employee needs, including initiatives for different age groups, cultural backgrounds, and physical ability levels.
Some of the things that I am optimistic about are:
Download the report and read Rob’s full interview.