HR leaders’ favorite total rewards investments of 2025

“On the first day of Christmas my CHRO gave to me…parental leave and AI e-learning.”

Our reimagination of that holiday classic might not be dominating the airwaves yet, but it’s one way to kick off this round-up of HR pros’ favorite total rewards investments over the past year.

HR leaders from companies including L’Oreal, AT&T, and BetterUp told us about the benefits that stood out for them in 2025, and what outcomes these programs had on the workforce.

Holistic well-being

“In 2025, we advanced our holistic well-being practice, moving it from a perk to a true organizational protection. By intentionally integrating employee feedback through our global listening system, we strengthened mental health advocacy and shifted from support and recovery to proactive prevention. This approach lowered barriers for those with the greatest need and created a more authentic experience for all employees. Compared to industry benchmarks, we’re seeing roughly 12% fewer instances of mental health conditions, translating into an estimated $4 in avoided healthcare costs for every $1 invested in our well-being services.”—Jill Dark, VP of talent futures, Steelcase

Cell and gene therapy

“AT&T partnered with Emerging Therapies Solutions (ETS) to stand up a three-part cell and gene therapy (CGT) program that has already generated nearly $1 million in savings across just seven cases—while eliminating most member out-of-pocket costs and meeting every access and experience service level agreement.

CGTs are shifting from ultra-rare to less-rare conditions. There are 37 approved therapies today, with roughly 20 more expected over the next 12–18 months. Many employers haven’t seen cases yet, but when they do, the price tags are staggering and the member journey is complex. AT&T’s early experience offers a practical blueprint for how to make million‑dollar medicines both reachable for members and sustainable for plans.

You can’t manage what you can’t see. Proactive identification turns a surprise multimillion‑dollar event into a planned care journey.”—Luke Prettol, principal benefits strategy consultant, AT&T

Parental leave

“In recent years we formalized and expanded our parental leave policies and added family support programs (24 weeks of paid leave for birthing parents/12 weeks paid leave for non-birthing parents). In 2023, we added Maven to provide both our employees and their growing families with 24/7 access to clinicians, resources, and education. More than 30% of our employees have accessed the consultation services and 16% have accessed the fertility, adoption/surrogacy, and maternity care wallet funded by Raines, which covers related out-of-pocket expenses not covered by traditional health insurance. Through these programs, new parents can take the time they need without worrying about a paycheck—allowing them to come back refreshed and ready to hit the ground running.

Since 2023, I’m thrilled to say that 100% of our new parents have returned to Raines post-leave and in our 2025 Great Place to Work survey, our employees cited our parental and family benefits in their top reasons why Raines is a great place to work.”—Chelsea Flohr-Heed, managing director, people operations, Raines International

Skills-based learning

“L’Oréal is fostering a skills-based, ‘learning over knowing’ organization. We continuously assess to ensure our workforce remains future-fit and proactively identified over 500 future-critical skills.

We offer extensive development opportunities through initiatives like our “University Week,” in which nearly 21,300 employees participated globally to be trained in essential skills related to big idea creation, influencing, P&L management, negotiation, and storytelling, and our transformative ‘Gen AI for All’ e-learning course, which has already trained 75% of our 12,000-person US workforce.”—Stephanie Kramer, CHRO, L’Oréal USA

AI education

“All BetterUp employees are required to complete AI Flight School before the end of the year. The six-week program has the goal of fostering pilot mindsets and empowering our workforce with AI fluency for their roles and across the organization. We’re continuing to build a more advanced curriculum so all employees are versed in complex AI tools and workflows. AFS is creating measurable change for our employees, with recent stats showing 67% of those who’ve completed AI Flight school see AI as a creative and strategic partner in their work, and 88% of those who’ve completed AI Flight school say they learned something valuable about using AI from a colleague in the last 30 days.

While AI Flight School may not be a traditional employee benefit, it’s become one of the most meaningful investments in our people.”—Jolen Anderson, chief people and community officer, BetterUp

Equity compensation

“We moved from biannual to annual equity refreshes, allowing for faster recognition and compounding reward over time. We also introduced differentiated award levels based on performance ratings, with top performers earning almost 2.5x the baseline grant. Over a three-year period, that creates market-leading equity positions for our top performers.

We’ve seen healthy retention among top performers, and we’ve received live feedback that this program has helped create healthy ambition; folks see a clear, fair connection between impact and reward. Most importantly, it’s reinforced our culture of excellence and ownership where performance is celebrated and rewarded in visible and meaningful ways. It’s a program that allows folks to earn differentiation, and that has resonated across our organization.”—Meg Pittman, chief people officer, dbt Labs