For the first time since I joined Benefits Canada 10 years ago, our parent company conducted an employee feedback survey this year, asking us a handful of questions about how we use our benefits plan.

Participating in an employee benefits survey as an individual with 15 years of experience writing about employee benefits was a bit of a meta experience — I’ve written about employee surveys and feedback countless times over the years, but never experienced it firsthand. Of course, I had some thoughts to share in the ‘Any additional comments’ box.

One piece of feedback was that the survey didn’t reference paramedical benefits; instead, they were grouped under the extended benefits plan. While our workforce is arguably more knowledgeable about employee benefits than most, I still think it’s important for a survey to be very clear when referencing the different categories of benefits that are available.

Read: Plan members more likely to choose extra cash over benefits plan: 2025 BCHS

Anecdotally, paramedical benefits are among the most highly valued and most used benefits among my colleagues, not to mention most Canadian employees. In fact, plan member respondents to the 2025 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey ranked it as the benefit they’d be most upset to have reduced or removed........

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