HR budget review & your wellbeing strategy: Build a business case in 4 steps
28 August 2025
Business budgets are up for review. Patterns from previous years suggest that HR budgets will face challenges, and this is likely to be exacerbated by the rise in the cost of doing business, due to the NIC and National Minimum Wage increases. We’re in a precarious position where business leaders may revert to viewing employee wellbeing and engagement initiatives as a nice-to-have instead of a vital part of their people and growth strategy. Proving the importance and demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) your wellbeing strategy can generate is crucial. In this blog, we’ll provide the information you need to build a persuasive business case.
In a hurry? Here are the key takeaways you need to know about securing HR budget for your wellbeing strategy & building your business case.
1. Wellbeing and engagement are business-critical — not optional: With rising business costs and HR budgets under scrutiny, employee wellbeing and engagement initiatives risk becoming 'dispensable'. HR professionals must position these initiatives as strategic necessities, directly tied to reducing absenteeism, improving retention, and increasing productivity. A well-articulated ROI is essential to safeguard budget allocation.
2. Integrate wellbeing into the core HR budget: Creating a separate budget line for engagement or wellbeing can signal to leadership that these are ‘nice-to-haves’. Instead, HR should embed all wellbeing and engagement costs within the overall HR budget, clearly linking them to talent attraction, retention, and risk mitigation. This framing strengthens the business case during budget reviews.
3. Build a data-driven, strategic business case: Securing budget requires a well-prepared, tailored business case using a five-part structure: strategic, economic, commercial, financial, and management.
If you have time to stick around, let's diver a little deeper.
What does an HR budget include?
Typically, an HR budget includes the cost of recruiting top talent, the predicted wage bill, private health plans, funds to cover learning and development initiatives, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, HR technology, contracted benefits and general administrative costs.
These elements form the core of your HR budget, the core essentials, if you like. We’ve included ‘contracted benefits’, which include the additional benefits you offer contractually, and those you’re committed to via third-party providers spanning over a few years. These are costs that must remain part of your HR budget; however, once the contract is over, you’ll need a business case to justify keeping them for next time.
Do you need a separate HR budget for employee engagement?
No. It’s best to keep your employee engagement budget and activities itemised within your HR budget. If you have a separate budget, you’re inadvertently suggesting that the associated costs are ‘extras’ – nice-to-haves.
Presenting the funds required for your employee engagement and wellbeing strategy as crucial elements within your HR budget for retaining and attracting talent and mitigating operational risk is the position we’re going to help you reach.
The importance of securing budget for your employee wellbeing strategy
We’ve mentioned employee engagement and employee wellbeing separately, but a holistic approach is to position them as intrinsically connected to your people strategy.
Engaged employees are less stressed and more likely to report experiencing better wellbeing than unengaged employees.
Why your employee wellbeing strategy matters
Now, on to the nitty-gritty: the seven reasons your employee wellbeing strategy matters, and why you need to secure funding in your HR budget. An effective wellbeing strategy reduces absenteeism, increases motivation, boosts engagement, improves retention, enhances productivity, strengthens your employer brand, and helps you become an employer of choice.
1. Reduce absenteeism
In our blog, ‘The Evolution and Growing Importance of Employee Wellbeing’, we reference research showing that nearly 17% of survey participants had taken 3 – 5 days off work due to mental health-related issues, and a further 11% had taken 6 – 10 days off.
Absenteeism costs the UK economy billions annually. A well-funded wellbeing strategy embeds preventative measures to help reduce absenteeism and save your business money.
2. Increase motivation
Employees are more loyal to an employer who prioritises their wellbeing. When they’re more loyal, they’re more motivated to see your business succeed. It comes down to psychology and the desire to support those who support you.
Then there’s the wellbeing element, and the fact that when employees are healthier, they have more physical and mental energy – a positive attitude that delivers results.
3. Boost engagement
A business that prioritises employee wellbeing is more likely to have a highly engaged workforce. The benefits of an engaged workforce include lower absenteeism and higher profits.
In our blog, ‘How to Transform Culture After Poor Engagement Scores’, we share that employees with managers who actively support a healthy work-life balance are 14% more engaged.
4. Improve retention
Employees working for a company that doesn’t prioritise their wellbeing are more likely to suffer from excess stress, which will eventually lead to them leaving for an organisation that will help them refocus on their health.
Be that employer -- the one who understands the benefits of a healthy workforce, and you’ll be in a better position to retain top talent.
5. Increase productivity
Healthier, engaged employees are more productive – a point we’ve already mentioned. Another angle to consider is whether recognition and reward play a role in your wellbeing strategy.
In our blog, ‘Reducing Stress by Increasing Recognition’, we explore the role recognition has in your wellbeing strategy. It’s also worth remembering how vital reward and recognition are in driving desired behaviours and boosting productivity.
6. Enhance employer brand
How you treat people matters to those who are considering doing business with you. When you have a strong employer brand and can demonstrate your commitment to employee wellbeing, you’re setting yourself up as a reputable brand.
When clients see you treating your employees right, they’re more likely to trust you with their employees, members, or customers.
7. Employer of choice
Recruitment is an expensive business, and the less you can spend on fees and filling roles, the better it is for your bottom line.
What if the talent came to you? That’s what happens when you’re an employer of choice.
People want to work for an ethical company that aligns with their values and prioritises their wellbeing. You can guarantee that potential candidates are looking at the wellbeing benefits offered when they’re reviewing your job listings and looking at what past and present employees are saying about their experience with you.
Four steps to secure buy-in for your employee wellbeing strategy
We’ve established the importance of having a wellbeing strategy. Next, we’ll work through the four steps to follow – the information you need to gather to build your business case and secure business buy-in.
1. Review your current benefits portfolio
Always start by reviewing your current wellbeing benefits offering, answering the questions below:
- What are your employees using? The most used benefits are more likely to give you a return on investment, whether that’s by helping keep employees healthy or because they help to retain them. These figures are essential to note.
- What’s going to waste? What benefits from your current offering do employees seem uninterested in, and what would the repercussions be if you discontinued them?
- What are the barriers to higher benefits engagement? Don’t write off underutilised benefits without first considering if there are other reasons for low uptake beyond interest.
- Is it admin-light? How much time does the administration of your current benefits package take, and what are the implications of this?
- Is it delivering results? What were your original KPIs, and have they improved since implementing your current benefits offering? If uptake is low, you’re less likely to meet KPIs and see a return on investment. When answering this question, you must reflect on the potential barriers, as this is important when considering who to partner with.
- What support is your provider giving you? From customer care to driving benefits engagement, it’s essential to review what additional support and value your current employee benefits partner/s provides as part of the package.
- Is it inclusive? Does your current benefits package cater to the varying needs of your diverse workforce? Inclusivity isn’t just about age and gender, but also location. Can remote and deskless employees make as much use of their employee benefits as their office and desk-based colleagues?
2. Get feedback from your employees
You’ll have likely made some assumptions based on the insights you gain from completing step one, but it’s always helpful to hear from your employees. Run a short survey, asking your workforce the questions below:
- What is a must-have from the current offering? Does what your workforce says is their most important or favourite benefit align with the most-used solution?
- What isn’t of interest to them? Are the under-utilised benefits on this list? Sometimes benefits go unused for other reasons, including lack of awareness and accessibility issues.
- Where do they need more help? What benefits would make the most difference to their lives – where do they most need support? Listen to what’s shared because it will be fundamental to creating an impactful wellbeing strategy.
- What additional benefits would they like? It’s OK to ask employees to submit a wish list. Most will understand that you can’t offer everything straight away. What matters is that you investigate and communicate the rationale behind your decisions.
- Do they find the current offering user-friendly? A poor user experience is a primary cause of low benefits uptake, so understanding how your employees feel about accessing and using their benefits is vital when reviewing your current offering.
3. Research other solutions
You’ve painted a clear picture of what you’ve got, what your employees want, the success stories, and how easy it is to manage your current offering. You’ll also be able to calculate whether it delivered a return on investment.
The results may be positive across the board, and as the benefits administrator or HR Director, you’re satisfied with your current offering. Still, if the contract is up for renewal and you need to approve the costs within your HR budget proposal, you’ll be expected to perform due diligence and explore other options.
In our blog, ‘What to Ask from an Employee Benefits Platform and Partner’, we encourage you to look beyond the advertised price, to dig deep into the details. What will cost extra? Does 'free' really mean no costs, and what will actually add value?
Remember, to get a return on investment, your employees must engage with their benefits. Offering them isn’t enough. You must drive engagement, so it’s vital to ask a potential partner what they do to help you succeed.
4. Build the business case
Once you’ve gathered the data in steps two and three and created a competitor analysis, the next step is to prepare your business case for securing the budget. Clearly present the benefits of your preferred supplier and how they compare to the next two best options.
If your preferred option is the most expensive, provide evidence that you can make the offering cost-neutral through salary sacrifice schemes and demonstrate how the partner is best placed to help you meet KPIs and maximise ROI.
Read more about the role of salary sacrifice schemes in our blog, ‘Salary Sacrifice and Your Business Cost-Savings Strategy’.
Top tips to factor in when considering how to write your business case
- Who are you presenting to? How do they like to receive information, and how can you present your case to cater to all needs?
- What will motivate them? Decision-makers will have different objectives. Some will understand the importance of a wellbeing strategy in driving sustainable growth. Others may not see beyond the initial cost to the business. Ensure you provide the information to cover every angle.
- What are the key considerations for each approver? Explain how each decision-maker's department could be impacted should your business case be rejected. We’re not suggesting scaremongering, but some people struggle to understand the impact a wellbeing strategy has on the wider business.
How to write your business case for employee benefits
There are five elements to your business case: strategic, economic, commercial, financial and management.
1. The strategic case
Focus on the most compelling reasons your audience should approve your business case for employee benefits and as part of the investment in your wellbeing strategy. It’s the ‘why’ and ‘what’. Why do you need to do this, and what are the desired and predicted outcomes? At this stage, you may also need to present a case for why you are proposing to change what you currently have as opposed to seeking budget to continue with the status quo.
Industry examples
- Manufacturing: The manufacturing industry struggles with high turnover and skills shortage. Create the ‘why’ by detailing what you spent on recruitment and training, and the productivity drops due to staff shortages. Present trusted data that proves the role that an attractive benefits package and wellbeing strategy have in improving retention. Offset the investment against the predicted savings and output increases.
- Technology: The tech industry reports high levels of stress and burnout. Mental health illnesses are the most significant cause of long-term sickness in the UK. Present the absenteeism data and the financial impact on the business alongside the expected return on investment that supporting employee mental health delivers.
- Professional services: The professional services industry is a highly competitive landscape, making the retention of top talent critical. You may find that turnover isn't high, but the loss of essential knowledge, skills, and talent still affects your bottom line, extending beyond the recruitment bill. Explore the financial impact on the business should your top three employees leave for a competitor. Present the investment required to provide the benefits that are most likely to make them stay, along with a cost vs loss analysis.
2. The economic case
Showcase the value for money your chosen provider offers – the cost vs the benefits – even any potential social and environmental impact they should consider. For example, present the National Insurance Contributions (NIC) saving potential of a Green Car salary sacrifice scheme, and how it will support your CSR ambitions. This is also the section where you can present your strategy for making your wellbeing strategy cost-neutral.
Industry examples
- Manufacturing: The manufacturing industry has many deskless workers, and businesses often operate across multiple locations. Present the benefits of your chosen benefits partner, such as a mobile-first app-based user experience that all employees can access.
- Technology: The technology industry is populated by tech-savvy individuals, predominantly from a younger demographic. How does your chosen solution deliver what they need from a user experience? Be sure to present how your wellbeing strategy can evolve to meet the needs of younger employees as they progress through life.
- Professional services: Present how the employee perks included in your proposal will improve your employees’ lifestyles, how an EV car scheme will encourage them to stay with your business and how they can make significant savings on daily expenses.
3. The commercial case
Detail what perks your competitors are offering their employees and how robust their commitment to wellbeing is. Present the steps you plan to implement that will guarantee your strategy will meet the KPIs, and how you plan to encourage uptake of benefits that save your business money, such as salary sacrifice and annual leave purchase schemes. Include how your chosen partner will add additional value and support.
Industry examples
- Manufacturing: Some employees working in the manufacturing sector will not be eligible to apply for a salary sacrifice scheme (for a bike or car) due to National Minimum Wage restrictions. How does your benefits partner provide the differentiator, enabling you to include this demographic where your competitors are falling short?
- Technology: Detail how your benefits rollout, ongoing communications strategy, and the features offered by the preferred partner speak the language of your tech-savvy, instant-gratification-seeking workforce, and how this will help drive uptake and deliver an ROI.
- Professional services: Plot out how your proposed benefits package and wellbeing strategy sets you apart from the other players in your sector, how they meet the needs of your workforce, and how they will help you retain top talent.
4. The financial case
This is where your return on investment and how you can generate savings through salary sacrifice schemes are vital, as you need to demonstrate how you can fund your benefits and wellbeing strategy. You’ll need to outline the upfront investment and expected ROI to give a clear explanation of when and how you’ll recoup the costs.
At this stage, you should also detail the value of the benefits to employees compared to a 3–4% company-wide pay increase.
Industry examples
- Manufacturing: With absenteeism being prevalent, detail how the benefits in your proposal will help create a healthier workforce. Access to an NHS GP can be a barrier to recovery. How will our digital health platform, Online GP, speed this up? How will our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) reduce mental health-related illnesses? Deloitte published stats revealing that for every £1 spent on employee wellbeing, there is a £5 return.
- Technology: How will your proposal help drive innovation and ensure you retain the skills needed to thrive in a constantly evolving landscape? Align your wellbeing and benefits strategy with your long-term organisational goals to demonstrate the financial implications of losing critical skills, including recruitment and other associated risks. See how the potential losses stack up against the investment you’re requesting.
- Professional services: Present insights from exit interviews that reveal why employees left your business. Pay particular attention to those who were seeking a better work-life balance, required more flexibility, less stress, and an improved benefits offering. Present what it cost the business to replace those employees, and compare that with the requested investment.
5. The management case
What happens after they approve your budget? Explain what’s involved in running your employee benefits and wellbeing initiatives, how your preferred partner’s solution minimises administration, streamlines all services into a unified platform, is easy to brand, will evolve with changing needs, and includes real-time data and insights. Shine a light on the value add – the customer care teams to handle employee queries, dedicated account management, roadshows and marketing support that are included as part of the package and will help drive ROI.
Industry examples
- Manufacturing: You have a diverse workforce. The majority are deskless and spread over multiple sites. Present how your partner’s mobile-first and app-based product makes the same offering available to every employee. Ensure you cover how the admin portal centralises all the perks, including recognition and benefits, in a SaaS environment that won’t impact the workplace location.
- Technology: Share screenshots or a video of the platform and app demo to help your audience see how your preferred solution meets the expectations of your workforce, delivers in-the-moment savings, and creates an unbeatable employee experience -- instant recognition, instant gratification, and the benefits that will improve your employees’ lives.
- Professional services: Ensure you highlight the ease of managing the offering and how many hours your proposed solution will save when compared with your current package. Then present the other part of your wellbeing strategy – how your HR team will have more time to focus on embedding employee wellbeing into your culture, improving employee health, engagement, productivity and happiness.
We’ve covered a lot within the five elements of your business case and the prep you need to do before building your proposal. You’re now clear on what to include in your business case, but there are other things to consider, such as:
- When to present your business case: It’s best to engage early before budget discussions begin, but you also need to be mindful of what else is happening. Whilst you may want to avoid presenting your case during a busy period, you do need to create a sense of urgency.
- Prepare for questions about your business case: Remember that your approvers will have different objectives and will be more focused on specific elements. Be prepared to have your ROI predictions drilled into, to defend why your proposal can’t wait for the next budget review and to ensure they understand the implications of not approving your business case.
Presenting Pluxee UK as your preferred supplier & benefits package as the best value for money
We’ve gone through the process of detailing how to present your preferred supplier as the best choice, so it would be remiss of us not to make a case for ourselves as to why we should tick your ‘preferred supplier’ box.
With a Pluxee partnership, you’ll receive:
- A unified benefits package in an all-in-one platform
- Dedicated account management
- Marketing support
- Transparent reporting
- Access to our market-leading differentiator – the Pluxee Card, allowing employees to earn cashback on everyday spending!
- A user-friendly app for ease of access, inclusive of deskless and remote workers
- Unbeatable employee discounts
We measure our success by yours, making us the trusted partner that can help you surpass your goals.
FAQs
My HR budget is stretched, how can I maximise results?
Salary Sacrifice Schemes and Annual Leave Purchase Schemes save your business money. Read our Budget-Busting Strategy Guide to learn how to leverage these savings to create a cost-neutral scheme.
How can we get more for less?
Explore schemes that are cost-neutral to set up. Salary sacrfice schemes are one example, but salary deduct schemes like SmartPay and Refurbished Tech are additional cost-neutral options.
How do I communicate the true value of a Pluxee partnership?
Demonstrate the importance of encouraging benefits uptake across your workforce and the role Pluxee UK plays in optimising it. From marketing support to account management, roadshows and transparent reporting, we provide what you need to achieve results.
