If disability claims tell a bad story, so does your culture, argues Beneplan’s Yafa Sakkejha
Embedding wellness into workplace culture is a point that cuts against the instinct of many plan sponsors, who tend to set their values once at the beginning or at sporadic times and move on.
But Valerie Fernandez argues that culture needs to respond to who and what is in the workplace right now.
“When we talk about culture within an organization, we need to look at who composes the workforce of that organization today,” says Fernandez, senior advisor in workplace health for Beneva. “Who those leaders are today, who those employees are today and what are their needs and their values and their expectations towards that organization and how does that organization respond to that? I feel that if we look at the culture as something that is stagnant and that it shouldn't evolve, it is what it is and has always been this way, we're going to lose the value of it. I feel that culture should evolve over time.”
Yafa Sakkejha also agrees that company culture starts - and often ends - with whoever is at the top. After 30 years in the benefits industry, she’s walked into workplaces across the spectrum and underscores that leadership character matters more than any policy or program.
"It's not about what they do. It's about who they are as people," said Sakkejha, CEO at Beneplan.
For Sakkejha, building culture “isn’t about spending money, it's about spending time," she said, emphasizing that employers should be willing to look inward, check their egos, and surround themselves with people who will challenge them. Without that, she believes no amount of investment will fix what is already broken.
Moreover, Fernandez believes too many organizations let their culture exist purely as a sign that sits in the office - a set of values employees walk past but never feel in practice. The gap between stated mission and lived experience is where engagement falls apart.
"I don't feel that they transpose that theory into management practices or how they live it on a day-to-day basis. And that's where I feel that there's a disconnect," she said, emphasizing that employees today want to understand what their work means and how it connects to their own values.
“Organizations today should question themselves in terms of what is our culture, how does that transpose into a day-to-day basis for an employee and even for our managers and for higher management? And does that align with the values that we want to communicate and the culture that we want to communicate? Every organization needs to question themselves and act on that and see if that aligns for them and if that aligns for the individuals that are within the organization today,” she added.
Still, the core challenge for plan sponsors is that employee needs are rarely uniform. After all, they vary across generations, regions, roles, and even different workplaces within the same organization, which makes communication around benefits and support services difficult.
Fernandez underscores how employers need to open real channels for feedback and listen closely to what employees are saying about their needs, interests, and concerns, even if that process feels uncomfortable or hard to control.
While most organizations aren’t short on offering programs like telemedicine, EAPs, health initiatives and raining, employees still don’t know where to turn when they need help. The problem is navigation. Whether the guide is a person, a digital tool, or a manager, someone has to help employees match the right service to the right moment. She is clear that managers carry a specific burden here.
“When that employee comes to you with a difficult time and a conversation that he's willing to have with you, you need to be able to turn to those support measures and offer the right service at the right time,” she said. “But if you don't even know what those services are or understand what's your leverage, like, what's your leeway, that's going to be difficult for you as a manager to have that position and to take that role. And you're going to feel uncomfortable with that conversation because you're not going to know what are your tools that you have in your toolbox.”
Sakkejha underscores employers need to define workplace culture clearly, involve employees in shaping it, and then repeat those values so often that they become part of everyday decision-making. She describes going through that process at her own firm by working with a leadership coach, writing down a business manifesto, and asking employees across the company what leadership qualities they admired. From that, the company built a set of core values that could guide both hiring and management.
The clearest window into a company's culture is not its drug claims or paramedical usage, but its disability claims history, Sakkejha noted.
“That's the place where we hear the most anecdotally about whether when a disability claim is submitted, if the employer calls us, saying, ‘You better not pay this claim because this person's lying.’ That is evidence and that's a signal to us of what kind of company that is. Whereas there's other companies that just don't do that. They just submit the claim,” she noted.
According to Sakkejha, disability claims often reflect deeper, compounding pressures like unpaid caregiving, financial strain, family stress, that accumulate until someone breaks down.
Employers with a long-term view understand this and respond with patience and generosity rather than suspicion. She points to disability management approaches that focus on helping people from day one, addressing undiagnosed conditions and reintegrating employees back into the workforce, which can cut average leave durations from months to weeks.
"You've got to treat people on disability with the most care and generosity," she said.
Fernandez suggests gathering employee input in a structured way helps organizations prioritize more effectively and shape support around the realities of their workforce rather than assumptions. She also sees a broader role for insurers, consultants, and other benefits partners, arguing that they need to listen just as carefully to plan sponsors and help build more flexible solutions.
When it comes to benefits dollars, Sakkejha uses a renovation analogy, drawing a sharp line between what she calls “ugly money” and “pretty money”. Ugly money is the furnace: disability benefits, life insurance, critical illness coverage. Nobody sees it, but it keeps the house running.
Whereas, pretty money is massage, vision, paramedical - the perks employees ask for and appreciate, but that pale in comparison when someone cannot work and needs income replaced.
She argues brokers should push employers to fund the parts of the plan that pay people the most when they are at their most vulnerable, rather than defaulting to the benefits that feel good on the surface.
Budgets are finite, and in her view, the real measure of a company's culture is not the perks it offers when things are going well.
"Don't forget about the times when people need you the most because that's when the workplace culture is going to come through,” she said. “People will remember how the company treated them when they got their ass handed to them.”
