Why Personalization Turns Employee Benefits into Business Results with David Duckworth, Ben

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
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SPEAKER_04 (00:26):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello, listeners.
This is your host today, BillBannham.
And in today's episode, we'rediving into how employee
benefits are being reimaginedfor a modern workforce.
My guest today is DavidDuckworth, co-founder and CEO of
over at Ben, a company on amission to transform how

(00:48):
organizations design, manage,and deliver benefits to their
people.
We will discuss why so much ofthe work global benefit spend is
wasted, how AI and automationare streamlining the experience
of HR teams, and whypersonalization is the key to
engagement.
David will also share how Ben'shuman-centered design approach
helps companies connect benefitstrategy to employee well-being

(01:12):
and business outcomes.
In addition, we're going to lookahead to Disrupt London, which
is happening November 12th,2025, hosted by Ben to explore
why events like this matter tothe future of the work
community.
David, how are you doing?
Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 (01:29):
Yeah, I'm great, Bill.
Thanks for having me.
Excited for the conversation.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32):
Let's begin with uh career origins.
You've had a pretty impressivecareer journey from Monitor,
Deloitte, and SoundCloud tomosaic benches and now Ben.
What experiences or aha momentsalong that journey inspired you
to co-found Ben?

SPEAKER_02 (01:49):
And I think we're all a you know formation of all
of our experiences prior towhatever we're doing now, right?
So um, I guess my background uhfor those listening.
So um from Brazil originally,actually, I was born and raised
in Brazil, but I went to uni andthen started my work career uh
in professional services for wasthen monitored Deloitte in the
US uh and then eventually foundmy way into in the UK.

(02:10):
And um, you know, I didn't startin the world of benefits or HR.
I kind of got pulled in thatdirection uh throughout, but uh
what I did spend a lot of timedoing was helping organizations
figure out how do they improveprocesses, right?
How do they improve the way thatthey deliver things initially to
their customers, and now whatI'm doing is helping
organizations to figure out howdo they deliver better
experience to their employees.

(02:31):
And uh my background is mostlyin payments, financial services.
That's the world that I comefrom.
And ultimately, part of um whatwe do is help companies to think
about benefits in a differentway, right?
Ultimately, a benefit, uh, andit's part of what inspired us to
start Ben, is something that acompany is paying for on behalf
of an employee.
But it's a particularlycomplicated payment that
happens, right?

(02:51):
Uh if you're thinking about mostbenefits programs, it's things
like, you know, uh thefoundational benefits, as we
call it, the uh medicalinsurances, life insurances,
retirement programs that impactfinancials' lives.
But there's a plethora of otherthings that companies are doing
to support their people.
And uh, I guess having had myown experiences working in
Brazil, in the US, now in theUK, always a bit sort of

(03:14):
underappreciated what it is thatI was getting.
And so those are part of kind ofthe inspiration for starting uh
Ben and uh helping againorganizations think through how
do they deliver benefits in amuch more efficient and
effective way.

SPEAKER_03 (03:28):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazette.com.
And now back to the show.

SPEAKER_04 (03:44):
Okay, cool.
So uh I'm someone who's workedin the US, worked in Canada, and
worked in the UK.
Um just a quick follow-up towhat you said there.
Uh, if you could offer one wordfor each of those territories to
describe the the unique culturein terms of working in each of
those countries.
So for example, uh the US mightbe fast.
Um what uh what would be a wordthat you'd use for Brazil, the

(04:07):
UK, uh for the US?

SPEAKER_02 (04:09):
Yeah, for Brazil, I would say messy.
Uh you know, companies are stillfiguring out um kind of you know
what to do, and it's a it is amessy environment which has
goods, good things, and badthings, I'd say in the US, um to
your points, right?
Like I think direct actually anduh kind of fast-paced.
And in the UK, um I would say uhum a bit behind the times,

(04:31):
actually.
Uh yeah, that's kind of how Idescribe it.

SPEAKER_04 (04:36):
Okay, there we go.
Thank you very much.
Um so let's let's let's talkabout mission and vision.
Ben's mission is to create aworld working at its best.
What does that mean in practicalterms for today's HR leaders and
business decision makers?

SPEAKER_02 (04:52):
Yeah, so it's um it as you said, Ruth, it's really
our mission.
And we think about it in twodifferent ways.
One is how do we ensure thatorganizations are helping their
people to do their best work andlive their best lives inside and
outside of work?
And we think benefits uh has acritical role to play in that.
So that's kind of one way thatwe take the mission.

(05:12):
The second one is benefits arecomplicated.
Uh, right, they're complicatedwithin each country, they're
complicated based on whatorganizations want to get out of
their benefits, and everythingworks slightly differently.
So uh we want to ensure that uhcompanies are managing that and
delivering that in the bestpossible way.
So we see that as like thatdouble meaning between getting
people to performance, gettingthem to work at their best, live

(05:33):
their best lives, and also arethe companies delivering sort of
the best possible workexperience or the best possible
um yeah, benefits experiencethat they can.

SPEAKER_04 (05:44):
Again, before we hit record today, you and I were
just sharing a little bit aboutour personal lives.
We've got young kids.
It ain't easy when you're whenyou're trying to balance that
with a full-time job.
Um in the context of rethinkingbenefits, you talk a lot about
moving from work-life balance towork-life integration.
How are you seeing that shiftplay out among your clients and

(06:06):
and their employees?

SPEAKER_02 (06:08):
Yeah, I think it's something that's changed through
um kind of with the pandemic aswell, right?
Like uh obviously that was amassive shift in terms of how
organizations work that I thinkmost are still figuring out, if
I'm honest, right?
And kind of all the way from uh,you know, you've got this
concept of work-life balancethat's been around for a while,

(06:28):
but with sort of people workingfrom home and uh um, you know,
being at work all the time,right, through our digital
devices here and the power oftechnology, which is amazing.
But what is difficult orchallenging sometimes is how do
you move again from this conceptof you know helping employees
people manage work-life balanceto a concept of more of like

(06:50):
work-life integration, which isthe realization that like, yeah,
things will spill over, right?
Like, and I think uh both uhpeople, like employees as well
as companies, want that to acertain extent, in the way that
you know, uh, I think one of theperks prior to pandemic or
benefits that a lot of companieswere leaning on or things like
that when they wanted to isthings like flexible working,
right?
And things like that, whichovernight is something that you

(07:11):
know every company had to adoptand shift to.
Uh and I think it's just kind ofa reframing or realization that
um this barrier uh thatsometimes got uh sort of
positioned as a barrier betweenwork and life doesn't really
exist anymore, right?
It's all intermingled.
Uh and yet how do you help umemployees to sometimes put in

(07:33):
the barriers when are necessaryand what are the support uh
things that company put in placeto enable people to live their
best lives outside of work aswell?
Because when they're doing that,right, to your point earlier
around things like childcaresupport and things like that, if
you have that side of thingsfigured out, the reality is that
you're gonna be betterperforming and you're gonna do
uh better at work when you havethat personal uh side uh in in

(07:57):
shape, right?
And so it's that realizationthat everything sort of needs to
um coalesce.
And then how do companiessupport employees to get to
where they want to get to, bothpersonally and professionally?

SPEAKER_04 (08:07):
How does that play out at in your office at Ben?
You know, whether that'sphysically in your office or you
know your your remoteenvironment.
How do you guys try to fosterthat kind of culture within Ben?

SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
Yeah, it's a good question.
So I mean, within so Ben, we'reabout 130 people at the time,
right?
So we're still a micro businessuh to a certain extent.
We're growing really fastthough.
Uh and uh with that comes itsown sort of challenges, right?
Uh in terms of what we try to dois really that understanding of
how do we help employees orfolks when they join to achieve

(08:38):
their own personal andprofessional goals, right?
And do we have the right supportstructure in place um to help
them to do that?
Uh and so I think you know,going back into the world of
benefits, for example, like Ithink a lot of companies or
organizations treat benefits asa bit of um, it's a bit of a
safety net, it's kind of justthere in case, right, that the

(08:59):
worst happens type of things.
But the reality is thatcompanies could be doing a lot
uh to be more kind of proactive,right, around the approach of
what is that they're offering.
And so that's what we try to dofor our team here.
So helping them to be able to dotheir best work and uh, you
know, again, to enable that typeof thing, what is the right
support structure that we put inplace?
And it all starts with obviouslylike you know, good goal

(09:20):
setting, gold line managementand things.
It doesn't exist in a vacuum,but then what is the uh kind of
yeah, benefits rewardphilosophy, everything working
together to kind of enable that?
So we spent a lot of timethinking about that.
So, in terms of examples ordifferent things that we try to
do, um uh like we don't believein things like unlimited
holidays and things like that.
That's not really a benefit forus, so like actually trying to

(09:42):
encourage people to take thetime out when they need to
because we know that they'regonna be more productive when
they do those types of things.
We have that minimum base levelof support, things like you
know, your private medical anduh financial well-being uh
advice and things like that.
Mental health is reallyimportant as well, kind of the
support in place when peopleneed it.
Um, but uh it's all about kindof orienting around what is the

(10:04):
support that people need at thatstage in their life to get to
where they want to go.
Um so yeah, we spend a lot oftime thinking about that to
create a work environment that'sgoing to be conducive in our
case to you know innovation,fast-paced, like create a
challenging work environmentbecause those are the types of
people that we want to attract.
So it's a lot of time spentthinking about what's the goal
and then what is the supportstructure that we need to put in

(10:25):
place around it to achieve thatgoal.

SPEAKER_01 (10:31):
Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes
things up, it makes you thinkdifferently, and it leaves you
inspired.
That event is Disrupt HR.
The format is 14 speakers, fiveminutes each, and slides rotate
every 15 seconds.
If you're an HR professional, aCEO, a technologist, or a
community leader, and you've gotsomething to say about talent,

(10:53):
culture, or technology, disruptis the place.
It's coming soon to a city nearyou.
Learn more at disrupt HR.co.

SPEAKER_04 (11:07):
In terms of a company that tries to foster
innovation, forward thinking,and so on and so forth.
When you guys are out therehiring, looking for new folks to
join, join Ben, are you are youmore inclined to find someone or
hire someone who's a bit quirky,maybe thinks outside the box,
doesn't think like anybody elsein the office at the moment,
someone who's willing tochallenge you personally as one

(11:28):
of the one of the key leaders atthe organization?

SPEAKER_02 (11:31):
We do.
I mean, one of our values isridiculously bold.
Uh so we definitely look like uhlook for that in in people,
right?
We want people to be able to,and I think that's somewhat
sometimes missing in uh sort ofthe HR world in general, right?
So like a lot of times HR getsbeing uh branded as um, you
know, kind of tick the box sortof compliance type of thing.
But the real leaders who aredriving change and

(11:51):
transformation are the ones whoare being bold, right?
And um, yeah, we very much valuethat kind of transparency and
people actually challenging us.
Like not with everything all atonce, all the time, right?
Um, but it is definitelysomething key that we look for.
I guess the other thing that welook for is actually like you
know, resilience um and it isthe ability to uh want to do

(12:12):
things differently, right?
Like challenge the status, thestatus quo, which um it's it's
some things that peoplesometimes miss, right?
Like if you're trying to dosomething exceptional or
something difficult, it's in thename, right?
It's going to be difficultbecause you're going against the
grain, right?
So like you need to look forthat sort of uh balance or like
that realization within peoplethat they want to do that,
right, or go through thatexperience.

(12:33):
Um, because yeah, we are gonnapush people more than they would
be otherwise, given thefast-paced uh nature of the
business, like the challenges ofthe business, like we're under
always under-resourced underconstraints, right?
So that is something that'sreally important for us that we
um get people in and enable themwithin that environment.
Uh and that's not gonna be rightfor everybody.

(12:54):
So it's something that we spenda lot of time thinking about.

SPEAKER_04 (12:56):
The next uh question I'm gonna challenge you to
answer in 60 seconds or less,uh, and it's around breaking
down some industry silos.
The the benefits ecosystem uhinvolves HR teams, brokers, and
providers, of course, often withlittle coordination, frankly.
How does Ben's platform bringthose players together and

(13:17):
simplify that complexity andanswer that in 60 seconds or
less?
Go.

SPEAKER_02 (13:22):
Yeah, so we want to be this open ecosystem.
And I think it is one of thethings that is missing from
this.
And it's not just the brokers,the providers, uh, but it's also
internal stakeholders, right?
Within an organization,obviously you have HR team,
reward teams, but you also havefinance team, payroll teams, HR
system teams, analytics teams.
And in order to be able toenable that within the system,

(13:44):
uh, we need to actually designfor these different types of use
cases.
And we want to be this open uharchitecture that enables people
to get the data that they needin order to make and drive
decisions and changes.

SPEAKER_04 (13:56):
Let's talk about something that a lot of a lot of
senior leaders listening to thispodcast today care about, and
that's the ROI of benefits.
You you said billions inbenefits spend go to waste each
year.
How does Ben help organizationsmeasure the return on investment
and demonstrate the real impactof benefits programs?

SPEAKER_02 (14:16):
It's something that all HR reward teams struggle
with, to be honest.
Uh, and as you said, right,between 10 to 30 percent of
payroll is spent on benefits.
Uh obviously different in that,so that's trillions, billions of
uh of dollars.
Um, and it's gonna be in verydifferent things worldwide.
So, like what we try to do iscreate um, and it's really
difficult to tie sort ofbenefits and direct causation,

(14:39):
right?
Which is one of the strugglesthat people have because you're
spending an extra dollar inbenefits, does that mean you're
going to get an extra uh dollarin in you know performance and
well-being and things like that?
Uh, I guess the way that wethink about it is there are um
you know regulatorily wisecompanies have to offer certain
benefits in certain geographies.
So when that is the case, how doyou ensure that people are

(15:00):
actually getting the maximumbang for their buck?
Um and so we spent a lot of timethinking about you know
utilization, how do uh employeesuse benefits and are you
investing into the right things?
We spend a lot of time thinkingabout um from a I guess like the
two worlds from a benefitsdesign point of view, do you
have the right things in place?
Are you offering relevant thingsthat employees actually care

(15:22):
about?
Uh, question number one.
And then question number two,are you delivering that in the
most efficient way possible?
Because what we see for manyorganizations is that they're
spending a lot of time doing thebrunt work uh uh and you know
the administration rather thanactually thinking about the
impact.
So we're helping uh companies toremove all of that
administration when it comes touh you know putting spreadsheets

(15:44):
and emails and everything to theside, but actually focusing on
the strategic elements of thejob.
And again, how do you drive moreimpact for every dollar in
benefit spend?

SPEAKER_04 (15:53):
Okay, awesome.
As I mentioned in the intro, uhyou guys have kindly stepped in,
listeners, somewhat uh in thelast minutes, actually, um, to
to uh help us bring the 25thedition of Disrupt London um to
our wonderful HR community.

(16:15):
And it's November 12th, it'sgonna be at your office.
It's an evening event startingaround about five o'clock.
Uh, thank you again, David, forfor stepping in.
Why did you guys decide to hostus?
What's the what's the alignmentwith what you guys do?
And also you're gonna be doing atalk.
So I wonder if you can uh justgive us a little teaser in terms
of what your five-minutelightning talk will be about.

SPEAKER_02 (16:37):
Yeah, so um uh I guess we're super excited to
participate because as we sortof appointed to earlier, is like
we love the change makers,right?
We like the people who aretrying to do something
differently and uh want to driveadditional impact and not just
check the box, which I thinkvery much aligns with you know
the disrupt HR, the brand andcommunity.
So we're really excited to hostpeople who are excited to have

(16:58):
those types of conversations.
And we want to we have a greatoffice.
We've moved in here like uh sixmonths or so ago, so we're
excited to use the space as welland um have the community join
in the office.
In terms of the talk and thingsthat I'm doing, I think we'll be
talking a little bit more aboutyou can't get away from it, but
AI and AI and benefits and howthat's changing benefits
delivery.
So we're really excited about uhthat and looking forward to the

(17:20):
conversation on the night.

SPEAKER_04 (17:21):
Perfect.
And just finally for today,David, how can our listeners
connect with you?
Is that LinkedIn, Instagram,whatever you want to share
there?
And of course, how can folkslearn more about Ben?

SPEAKER_02 (17:31):
Yeah, perfect.
So yeah, for everybodylistening, um, LinkedIn is
probably the best place.
So uh David Duckworth is justfollowing me on there.
I do try to uh be a little bitactive in sharing what we're
doing here at Ben and uh whatwe're doing for our clients.
So definitely do connect there.
You can also just email medirectly, david at
thanksbend.com.
Uh we'll try to be as responsiveas I can.
And to learn more about Ben, uhyeah, our website is probably

(17:52):
the best place.
So that's www.thanksben.com.

SPEAKER_04 (17:55):
Awesome.
Uh that was what you call arapid fire interview, but I feel
like Lightning Fast.
Lightning fast ahead of yourlightning talk, sir.
That's right.
Um, David, that just leaves meto say for today, thank you very
much.
I'm looking forward to meetingyou in person next week at
Disrupt London.
Um, you guys are awesome.
Thanks again for stepping in asour hosts.
Um, and I've enjoyed theconversation today.

(18:16):
Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 (18:17):
Yeah, same here.
I appreciate it, Bill.
Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_04 (18:20):
And listeners, as always, until next time, happy
working.

SPEAKER_00 (18:26):
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