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

How much of your benefits budget actually helps people live and work better?

In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham sits down with David Duckworth, Co-Founder and COO at Ben, to explore why so much global benefits spend gets wasted—and how a smarter, more human approach can turn perks into performance.

David draws on his background in payments, financial services, and HR tech to reframe benefits as what they really are: complex, recurring payments that deserve the same precision and transparency as payroll. That mindset, he argues, is key to building cleaner, simpler, and more impactful experiences for employees everywhere.

The conversation covers:

• The shift from work-life balance to work-life integration—and how policy design must evolve
• How Ben encourages real-time off and embeds wellbeing into daily workflows
• Why boldness and resilience define great hires and high-performing teams
• The mechanics of fixing a fragmented benefits ecosystem with AI, automation, and open architecture
• How to measure ROI in practical ways—through adoption, engagement, experience scores, and retention impact

We also preview Disrupt London 25.0, hosted at Ben on November 12, 2025, and discuss why bringing innovators together accelerates progress in employee experience and HR tech.

If you’re rethinking your benefits strategy or building the next generation of workplace experience, this conversation is your playbook.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Episode Setup
• 0:32 Guest Intro And Agenda
• 1:33 Career Origins And Inspiration
• 3:45 Work Culture Across Countries
• 4:41 Ben’s Mission In Practice
• 6:04 From Balance To Integration
• 8:07 Building A Supportive Culture At Ben
• 10:31 Hiring For Boldness And Resilience
• 12:24 Uniting A Fragmented Benefits Ecosystem
• 13:56 Measuring ROI And Reducing Waste
• 16:15 Disrupt London: Why Host And What’s Next
• 17:34 Connect With David And Learn More
• 18:16 Closing And Subscriber Reminder

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talented, tech enthusiasts, and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hrgazette.com.

SPEAKER_04: 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello, listeners. This is your host today, Bill Bannham. And in today's episode, we're diving into how employee benefits are being reimagined for a modern workforce. My guest today is David Duckworth, co-founder and CEO of over at Ben, a company on a mission to transform how organizations design, manage, and deliver benefits to their people. We will discuss why so much of the work global benefit spend is wasted, how AI and automation are streamlining the experience of HR teams, and why personalization is the key to engagement. David will also share how Ben's human-centered design approach helps companies connect benefit strategy to employee well-being and business outcomes. In addition, we're going to look ahead to Disrupt London, which is happening November 12th, 2025, hosted by Ben to explore why events like this matter to the future of the work community. David, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29

Yeah, I'm great, Bill. Thanks for having me. Excited for the conversation.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32

Let's begin with uh career origins. You've had a pretty impressive career journey from Monitor, Deloitte, and SoundCloud to mosaic benches and now Ben. What experiences or aha moments along that journey inspired you to co-found Ben?

SPEAKER_02: 1:49

And I think we're all a you know formation of all of our experiences prior to whatever we're doing now, right? So um, I guess my background uh for those listening. So um from Brazil originally, actually, I was born and raised in Brazil, but I went to uni and then started my work career uh in professional services for was then monitored Deloitte in the US uh and then eventually found my way into in the UK. And um, you know, I didn't start in the world of benefits or HR. I kind of got pulled in that direction uh throughout, but uh what I did spend a lot of time doing was helping organizations figure out how do they improve processes, right? How do they improve the way that they deliver things initially to their customers, and now what I'm doing is helping organizations to figure out how do they deliver better experience to their employees. And uh my background is mostly in payments, financial services. That's the world that I come from. And ultimately, part of um what we do is help companies to think about benefits in a different way, right? Ultimately, a benefit, uh, and it's part of what inspired us to start Ben, is something that a company is paying for on behalf of an employee. But it's a particularly complicated payment that happens, right? Uh if you're thinking about most benefits programs, it's things like, you know, uh the foundational benefits, as we call it, the uh medical insurances, life insurances, retirement programs that impact financials' lives. But there's a plethora of other things that companies are doing to support their people. And uh, I guess having had my own experiences working in Brazil, in the US, now in the UK, always a bit sort of underappreciated what it is that I was getting. And so those are part of kind of the inspiration for starting uh Ben and uh helping again organizations think through how do they deliver benefits in a much more efficient and effective way.

SPEAKER_03: 3:28

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazette.com. And now back to the show.

SPEAKER_04: 3:44

Okay, cool. So uh I'm someone who's worked in the US, worked in Canada, and worked in the UK. Um just a quick follow-up to what you said there. Uh, if you could offer one word for each of those territories to describe the the unique culture in terms of working in each of those countries. So for example, uh the US might be fast. Um what uh what would be a word that you'd use for Brazil, the UK, uh for the US?

SPEAKER_02: 4:09

Yeah, for Brazil, I would say messy. Uh you know, companies are still figuring out um kind of you know what to do, and it's a it is a messy environment which has goods, good things, and bad things, I'd say in the US, um to your points, right? Like I think direct actually and uh kind of fast-paced. And in the UK, um I would say uh um a bit behind the times, actually. Uh yeah, that's kind of how I describe it.

SPEAKER_04: 4:36

Okay, there we go. Thank you very much. Um so let's let's let's talk about mission and vision. Ben's mission is to create a world working at its best. What does that mean in practical terms for today's HR leaders and business decision makers?

SPEAKER_02: 4:52

Yeah, so it's um it as you said, Ruth, it's really our mission. And we think about it in two different ways. One is how do we ensure that organizations are helping their people to do their best work and live their best lives inside and outside of work? And we think benefits uh has a critical role to play in that. So that's kind of one way that we take the mission. The second one is benefits are complicated. Uh, right, they're complicated within each country, they're complicated based on what organizations want to get out of their benefits, and everything works slightly differently. So uh we want to ensure that uh companies are managing that and delivering that in the best possible way. So we see that as like that double meaning between getting people to performance, getting them to work at their best, live their best lives, and also are the companies delivering sort of the best possible work experience or the best possible um yeah, benefits experience that they can.

SPEAKER_04: 5:44

Again, before we hit record today, you and I were just sharing a little bit about our personal lives. We've got young kids. It ain't easy when you're when you're trying to balance that with a full-time job. Um in the context of rethinking benefits, you talk a lot about moving from work-life balance to work-life integration. How are you seeing that shift play out among your clients and and their employees?

SPEAKER_02: 6:08

Yeah, I think it's something that's changed through um kind of with the pandemic as well, right? Like uh obviously that was a massive shift in terms of how organizations work that I think most 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 balance that's been around for a while, but with sort of people working from home and uh um, you know, being at work all the time, right, through our digital devices here and the power of technology, which is amazing. But what is difficult or challenging sometimes is how do you move again from this concept of you know helping employees people manage work-life balance to a concept of more of like work-life integration, which is the realization that like, yeah, things will spill over, right? Like, and I think uh both uh people, like employees as well as companies, want that to a certain extent, in the way that you know, uh, I think one of the perks prior to pandemic or benefits that a lot of companies were leaning on or things like that when they wanted to is things like flexible working, right? And things like that, which overnight is something that you know every company had to adopt and shift to. Uh and I think it's just kind of a reframing or realization that um this barrier uh that sometimes got uh sort of positioned as a barrier between work and life doesn't really exist anymore, right? It's all intermingled. Uh and yet how do you help um employees to sometimes put in the barriers when are necessary and what are the support uh things that company put in place to enable people to live their best lives outside of work as well? Because when they're doing that, right, to your point earlier around things like childcare support and things like that, if you have that side of things figured out, the reality is that you're gonna be better performing and you're gonna do uh better at work when you have that personal uh side uh in in shape, right? And so it's that realization that everything sort of needs to um coalesce. And then how do companies support employees to get to where they want to get to, both personally and professionally?

SPEAKER_04: 8:07

How does that play out at in your office at Ben? You know, whether that's physically in your office or you know your your remote environment. How do you guys try to foster that kind of culture within Ben?

SPEAKER_02: 8:18

Yeah, it's a good question. So I mean, within so Ben, we're about 130 people at the time, right? So we're still a micro business uh to a certain extent. We're growing really fast though. Uh and uh with that comes its own sort of challenges, right? Uh in terms of what we try to do is really that understanding of how do we help employees or folks when they join to achieve their own personal and professional goals, right? And do we have the right support structure 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 I think a lot of companies or organizations treat benefits as a bit of um, it's a bit of a safety net, it's kind of just there in case, right, that the worst happens type of things. But the reality is that companies 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 do for our team here. So helping them to be able to do their best work and uh, you know, again, to enable that type of thing, what is the right support structure that we put in place? And it all starts with obviously like you know, good goal setting, gold line management and things. It doesn't exist in a vacuum, but then what is the uh kind of yeah, benefits reward philosophy, everything working together to kind of enable that? So we spent a lot of time thinking about that. So, in terms of examples or different things that we try to do, um uh like we don't believe in things like unlimited holidays and things like that. That's not really a benefit for us, so like actually trying to encourage people to take the time out when they need to because we know that they're gonna be more productive when they do those types of things. We have that minimum base level of support, things like you know, your private medical and uh financial well-being uh advice and things like that. Mental health is really important as well, kind of the support in place when people need it. Um, but uh it's all about kind of orienting around what is the support that people need at that stage in their life to get to where they want to go. Um so yeah, we spend a lot of time thinking about that to create a work environment that's going to be conducive in our case to you know innovation, fast-paced, like create a challenging work environment because those are the types of people that we want to attract. So it's a lot of time spent thinking about what's the goal and then what is the support structure that we need to put in place around it to achieve that goal.

SPEAKER_01: 10:31

Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes things up, it makes you think differently, and it leaves you inspired. That event is Disrupt HR. The format is 14 speakers, five minutes each, and slides rotate every 15 seconds. If you're an HR professional, a CEO, a technologist, or a community leader, and you've got something to say about talent, culture, or technology, disrupt is the place. It's coming soon to a city near you. 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 there hiring, looking for new folks to join, join Ben, are you are you more inclined to find someone or hire someone who's a bit quirky, maybe thinks outside the box, doesn't think like anybody else in the office at the moment, someone who's willing to challenge you personally as one of the one of the key leaders at the organization?

SPEAKER_02: 11:31

We do. I mean, one of our values is ridiculously bold. Uh so we definitely look like uh look for that in in people, right? We want people to be able to, and I think that's somewhat sometimes missing in uh sort of the HR world in general, right? So like a lot of times HR gets being uh branded as um, you know, kind of tick the box sort of compliance type of thing. But the real leaders who are driving change and transformation are the ones who are being bold, right? And um, yeah, we very much value that kind of transparency and people actually challenging us. Like not with everything all at once, all the time, right? Um, but it is definitely something key that we look for. I guess the other thing that we look for is actually like you know, resilience um and it is the ability to uh want to do things differently, right? Like challenge the status, the status quo, which um it's it's some things that people sometimes miss, right? Like if you're trying to do something exceptional or something difficult, it's in the name, right? It's going to be difficult because you're going against the grain, right? So like you need to look for that sort of uh balance or like that realization within people that they want to do that, right, or go through that experience. Um, because yeah, we are gonna push people more than they would be otherwise, given the fast-paced uh nature of the business, like the challenges of the business, like we're under always under-resourced under constraints, right? So that is something that's really important for us that we um get people in and enable them within that environment. Uh and that's not gonna be right for everybody. So it's something that we spend a 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 uh involves HR teams, brokers, and providers, of course, often with little coordination, frankly. How does Ben's platform bring those players together and simplify that complexity and answer 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 the things 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 have finance team, payroll teams, HR system teams, analytics teams. And in order to be able to enable that within the system, uh, we need to actually design for these different types of use cases. And we want to be this open uh architecture that enables people to get the data that they need in 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 this podcast today care about, and that's the ROI of benefits. You you said billions in benefits spend go to waste each year. How does Ben help organizations measure the return on investment and demonstrate the real impact of 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 very different things worldwide. So, like what we try to do is create um, and it's really difficult to tie sort of benefits and direct causation, right? Which is one of the struggles that people have because you're spending an extra dollar in benefits, does that mean you're going to get an extra uh dollar in in you know performance and well-being and things like that? Uh, I guess the way that we think about it is there are um you know regulatorily wise companies have to offer certain benefits in certain geographies. So when that is the case, how do you ensure that people are actually getting the maximum bang for their buck? Um and so we spent a lot of time thinking about you know utilization, how do uh employees use benefits and are you investing into the right things? We spend a lot of time thinking about um from a I guess like the two worlds from a benefits design point of view, do you have the right things in place? Are you offering relevant things that employees actually care 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 many organizations is that they're spending a lot of time doing the brunt work uh uh and you know the administration rather than actually thinking about the impact. So we're helping uh companies to remove all of that administration when it comes to uh you know putting spreadsheets and emails and everything to the side, but actually focusing on the strategic elements of the job. And again, how do you drive more impact for every dollar in benefit spend?

SPEAKER_04: 15:53

Okay, awesome. As I mentioned in the intro, uh you guys have kindly stepped in, listeners, somewhat uh in the last minutes, actually, um, to to uh help us bring the 25th edition of Disrupt London um to our wonderful HR community. And it's November 12th, it's gonna be at your office. It's an evening event starting around about five o'clock. Uh, thank you again, David, for for stepping in. Why did you guys decide to host us? What's the what's the alignment with what you guys do? And also you're gonna be doing a talk. So I wonder if you can uh just give us a little teaser in terms of what your five-minute lightning talk will be about.

SPEAKER_02: 16:37

Yeah, so um uh I guess we're super excited to participate because as we sort of appointed to earlier, is like we love the change makers, right? We like the people who are trying to do something differently and uh want to drive additional impact and not just check the box, which I think very much aligns with you know the disrupt HR, the brand and community. So we're really excited to host people who are excited to have those types of conversations. And we want to we have a great office. We've moved in here like uh six months or so ago, so we're excited to use the space as well and um have the community join in the office. In terms of the talk and things that I'm doing, I think we'll be talking a little bit more about you can't get away from it, but AI and AI and benefits and how that's changing benefits delivery. So we're really excited about uh that and looking forward to the 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 folks learn more about Ben?

SPEAKER_02: 17:31

Yeah, perfect. So yeah, for everybody listening, um, LinkedIn is probably the best place. So uh David Duckworth is just following me on there. I do try to uh be a little bit active in sharing what we're doing here at Ben and uh what we're doing for our clients. So definitely do connect there. You can also just email me directly, david at thanksbend.com. Uh we'll try to be as responsive as I can. And to learn more about Ben, uh yeah, our website is probably the best place. So that's www.thanksben.com.

SPEAKER_04: 17:55

Awesome. Uh that was what you call a rapid fire interview, but I feel like Lightning Fast. Lightning fast ahead of your lightning talk, sir. That's right. Um, David, that just leaves me to say for today, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to meeting you in person next week at Disrupt London. Um, you guys are awesome. Thanks again for stepping in as our hosts. Um, and I've enjoyed the conversation today. 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

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette? And remember, for what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hrgazette.com.