Building inclusive family benefits? Start with these lessons from Deutsche Bank

Between rising healthcare costs, shifting employee expectations, and economic uncertainty squeezing already tight budgets, today’s benefits leaders are navigating an increasingly complex landscape. But reproductive healthcare, parental leave, and menopause support are no longer “nice to have” benefits—they’re make-or-break for attraction and retention. 

Maven’s Chief Financial Officer, Katie Rooney, recently sat down with Jackie McNeil, Head of Benefits for the Americas at Deutsche Bank, to talk about how Jackie is balancing providing best-in-class reproductive and family benefits for employees while keeping ROI top of mind. In this blog, we’ll explore how leading employers like Deutsche Bank are evolving their strategies to deliver real value, both for their workforce and their bottom line.

Why family benefits are now business-critical

According to Rooney, HR and benefits leaders are “facing a perfect storm,” with healthcare costs expected to rise nearly 9% this year. At the same time, employees want more from their benefits, especially when it comes to reproductive and family health—two in three employees say they would switch jobs for better reproductive healthcare. 

Reproductive health benefits affect employee retention and are important beyond fertility care and parental leave, too. Of people experiencing menopause, one in five of them have left or considered leaving their jobs due to their symptoms. “We need to get people to specialists who can educate them and support them,” says McNeil. “In terms of giving support for menopause, so many OB-GYNs aren’t educated on it.”

Across the board, well-supported employees are more loyal, more productive, and more engaged, making women’s and family benefits a business-critical investment that directly impacts your bottom line.  

Building the case: impact, efficiency, and ROI

Fragmented care can be expensive for employers, both in terms of clinical outcomes and overall efficiency. 

The hidden cost of inadequate care

Getting the right reproductive healthcare can feel like navigating a labyrinth, and it’s a costly one. One IVF cycle can cost more than $23,000, and people often need multiple cycles to achieve pregnancy. Upon giving birth, nearly one in ten newborns are admitted to the NICU, with an average cost of $58,100 for a week-long stay. When it comes to menopause, the lack of menopause support is estimated to cost employers over $150 billion annually in global productivity losses. 

At Deutsche Bank, McNeil notes that many employees are waiting longer to start a family and becoming increasingly interested in cryopreservation and fertility treatment, but many of them don’t know where to start, what costs are reasonable, and how to get reimbursed. Navigating this reproductive healthcare landscape can be especially confusing when care is fragmented across different providers, different platforms, and insurance companies that don’t integrate or communicate with each other.    

Fragmented care leads to higher spend and worse outcomes—while holistic care provides a better patient experience and cost savings. For example, one in three Maven members get pregnant without assisted reproductive technology like IVF, saving tens of thousands of dollars in treatments with strategic preconception coaching and care. 

Benefits that deliver business outcomes

In addition to cost savings, holistic benefits can also boost employee productivity, loyalty, and overall well-being. According to Rooney, 96% of Maven members feel more loyal to their employer, and 88% of fertility patients say that having access to this reproductive support increases their productivity at work. Hands-on guidance, mental healthcare, and care navigation assistance in the confusing reproductive benefits landscape lowers the need for unnecessary procedures and treatments. As a result, Maven clients see up to 4x clinical and business ROI from implementing women’s and family health support.

What modern benefit design looks like

McNeil recognizes the importance of designing benefits intentionally and thoughtfully with your specific employee demographics at the center. Here are some ways she prioritizes customization, inclusivity, and accessibility for Deutsche Bank employees. 

Personalization across life stages

From fertility to parenting to menopause, benefits should reflect real human journeys. Deutsche Bank designed their specific benefits offerings based on their employee demographics and care access gaps. In the financial services industry, McNeil says many employees are waiting until later in life to start a family, which means employees might struggle more to achieve pregnancy and have a greater need for IVF treatments. “Because our employees are waiting until later in life to start a family, we have a higher likelihood of people having high-risk pregnancies,” McNeil says. “We’ve built a great reimbursement program around family building where we provide stipends to help subsidize the cost of different avenues, like cryopreservation, IVF, and surrogacy.”

McNeil also notes the importance of wraparound support. In addition to clinical care and financial support, employees often need help navigating these complex systems and getting the emotional support they need as well. “If you’ve never gone through this journey before, it can be really daunting,” McNeil says. Maven allows Deutsche Bank employees to access holistic, wraparound care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “The providers are also diverse,” says McNeil. “They have diverse profiles and backgrounds and they speak different languages.” In fact, many Deutsche Bank employees have even leaned on Maven for career coaching, along with clinical and emotional support. 

Inclusive by design

To be more inclusive and better support all parents, Deutsche Bank redesigned their parental leave policies five years ago to move away from the primary and secondary caregiver binary. Now, they give fathers 16 weeks of leave following the birth or adoption of a child. “We really push them and encourage them to use every bit of that leave,” says McNeil. “We make it as flexible as possible and give them a year to use it so they can break it up.”

Birthing mothers at Deutsche Bank receive two weeks of antepartum leave, six to eight weeks maternity leave, and 16 weeks of parental leave, resulting in up to 26 weeks of paid leave. “When you have a mother who just birthed a child, she really needs that time to prepare, the physical recovery and then the bonding time, where she can really focus on the baby and feel her best,” McNeil says. 

Deutsche Bank also allows new parents to work a flexible schedule for the first year of their baby’s life. This forward-thinking leave policy allows parents to be more engaged when they return to work. 

More inclusive benefits policies help support more diverse paths to parenthood, from surrogacy to egg freezing to LGBTQIA+-specific needs. McNeil notes that these family benefits help Deutsche Bank attract and retain top female talent in a male-dominated industry. 

Making access easy

Employees don’t want another app that’s siloed and complicated to use—they want integrated support. For benefits to actually be used, they need to be easy to navigate and readily available when employees need them. With wraparound support all in one place, vendor consolidation means fewer touchpoints and better patient outcomes. With Maven, employees have a dedicated care team to help them navigate different resources and access coaching and additional support. Virtual care allows employees to access this support 24/7, meaning it’s available when they need it most without needing to wait days or weeks to see a provider. 

Overcoming the most common barriers

Budget constraints, leadership buy-in, and low engagement are all common reasons why reproductive benefits may not get prioritized. Here’s how to address them. 

Budget constraints and competing priorities

In today’s economic landscape, budgets are tight, and HR and benefits leaders are feeling pulled in many different directions by competing priorities. However, Deutsche Bank and other leading companies are reframing care programs as cost avoidance, recognizing that proactive care now prevents more costly interventions down the line. 

At Deutsche Bank, budget priorities shifted when they started treating women’s and family health as core to their medical plan instead of an add-on. When Maven discussed expected engagement and ROI with Deutsche Bank, McNeil was able to see this care as an embedded part of their medical plan. “When we look at the cost of Maven’s services, it’s less than half a percent of our entire annual costs,” McNeil says. 

Leadership buy-in

To get leadership buy-in, it’s important to speak their language, proving ROI in terms of total cost of care, long-term outcomes, and employee retention. This retention angle was particularly important to Deutsche Bank’s CFO. “They’re in the numbers, but they’re also focused on employee retention because it costs a lot to hire employees, and then you lose that knowledge and everything,” McNeil explains. “It was a fairly easy sell for us when we put it in that perspective for them.”

Low awareness and engagement

Even best-in-class benefits don’t matter if employees don’t use them. Especially when it comes to fertility and family benefits, there can be a lot of confusion on what’s available and where to start. “You have to get the word out,” McNeil says. “The program is only as successful as making people aware that it's out there.”

To promote utilization, McNeil makes sure to train recruiters on their family benefits specifically so they can speak to them with prospective employees. Deutsche Bank has also put out internal guides and manager toolkits to foster engagement, and getting involved directly with employee resource groups (ERGs) can be a great way to reach specific employee populations directly. Deutsche Bank also created a guide called “Resources for You and Your Family” to drive awareness and benefits utilization. 

McNeil also noted the importance of working with a benefits partner who listens to feedback and innovates with you. Last year, Deutsche Bank requested that Maven create a content hub to consolidate resources, which they quickly rolled out to everyone. “I feel like Maven is listening and constantly making improvements to drive engagement,” McNeil says.

What success looks like—and how to measure it

To measure success and demonstrate ROI, companies can monitor clinical metrics as well as business ones. Some clinical metrics to watch are NICU admissions, C-section rates, and the number of IVF cycles needed to achieve pregnancy. From a business perspective, look at return-to-work rates, employee engagement, and usage by life stage. 

To best present ROI in a way that resonates, align with your HR and finance teams to make sure you understand what metrics are most important to them. For a fuller picture, you can combine internal data like medical claims and leave with vendor and TPA metrics too.

Building better support with Maven

Family benefits aren’t just a perk anymore—they’re a strategic investment in employee loyalty, productivity, and well-being. When designed inclusively and delivered with the right partners, women’s and family benefits improve health outcomes while reducing business costs. 

If you’re looking for a place to start, McNeil recommends analyzing your data and existing health plan. Look at your employee demographics and their geography. Where are the gaps? Where is care fragmented? Where can you consolidate? 

When you’re ready to audit your family benefits strategy, Maven is here to help. Book a call with our team today.