As humans, given one or more options, we sometimes make choices that can undermine our health, our financial well-being or our waistline.

Behavioral economists study our decision-making and provide insights into what drives our choices, and guess what… this applies to benefits choices as well!

In this e-book, we look at three of the forces at work when we make decisions, including when employees make benefit choices.

1. Risk or loss aversion - People prefer a surer thing over a riskier prospect that may end in them losing something they value.

2. Status quo bias - Human beings are creatures of habit. We generally don’t like to change things up too much, preferring to stick with what we know.

3. Outcome bias - Sometimes, even bad decisions yield good results. In these cases, the outcome is based more on luck or happenstance than on a well-informed choice.

When making benefits decisions, employees do what all humans faced with choices do--their best. But, this best is informed by factors like the above, that may contribute to poor decisions and bad outcomes.

To help your employee overcome these factors, you must first understand what they are and how they impact your employee’s decisions. Then you can lead your employees to decision making that connects them to better benefit choices, which by extension, yields more successful results for you too.