Benefit cost vs utilisation: which perks are worth the spend in Africa

The top-right quadrant — high cost, high utilisation — is occupied by health access benefits and transport support, confirming they are worth the investment. The bottom-right quadrant — high cost, low utilisation — contains group life insurance (high cost, rarely thought about by employees under 40), international travel insurance (expensive, seldom used), and gym memberships (purchased, rarely visited). The top-left quadrant — low cost, high utilisation — is the highest-ROI zone: flexible working, airtime credits, and meal vouchers all sit here. The most underappreciated finding is that mental health counselling access sits in the top-left quadrant when properly implemented: low cost per head, high utilisation when made accessible without stigma or friction.

African companies consistently over-invest in the bottom-right quadrant — high-cost, low-utilisation benefits that look impressive in a benefits handbook but contribute little to employee experience. Group life insurance and international travel cover are examples that feel substantive in a policy document but have near-zero interaction value for most employees day-to-day. Redirecting even a portion of this spend toward high-utilisation, lower-cost benefits would produce significantly better employee experience ROI.

• Map all your current benefits onto the cost-vs-utilisation quadrant — any benefit in the bottom-right (high cost, low utilisation) is a candidate for renegotiation, removal, or replacement
• Flexible working is in the top-left quadrant for most African knowledge-worker roles — it costs almost nothing and is the second-most-demanded benefit in every market survey. If you are not offering it, you are spending more on benefits that matter less
• Before adding any new benefit, estimate its likely utilisation rate before agreeing to the cost — a $15/month per-head benefit with 90% utilisation delivers more value than a $40/month benefit with 20% utilisation