Executive Benefits Are No Longer Just About Retention

How do you hold on to your top talent?

by Tony Greene

For years, business leaders have viewed executive benefits through a simple lens. How do we attract great talent? How do we retain our most important people? How do we stay competitive?

Those questions still matter. In fact, they matter a great deal. NFP’s 2026 Executive Benefits Trend Report found that 81% of organizations say they cannot afford to lose top talent. At the same time, nearly all (99%) say executive benefits have been successful in retaining those individuals.

But as I reviewed this year’s findings, I kept coming back to a different conclusion. Executive benefits are no longer just about retention. They’re about succession. They’re about growth. They’re about protecting the future of the organization.

And this shift matters, particularly in the mid-market.

Maybe We’ve Been Using the Wrong Term

The term executive benefits doesn’t encompass the full scope of its capabilities.

When thinking about executive benefits what comes to mind are highly compensated employees who drive value inside an organization. Sometimes they’re executives. Sometimes they’re not.

They may be top producers. They may be leading a critical client relationship. They may be managing a key operation. They may be the person everyone turns to when something important needs to get done. Whatever their title, they’re the people the organization depends on.

Over the years, I’ve also joked that if you’ve seen one executive benefit plan, you’ve seen exactly one executive benefit plan. The reason is simple. Every company is different.

Their goals are different. Their challenges are different. Their workforce is different.

A strategy that makes sense for a growing regional bank may not make sense for a manufacturing company. A plan designed to transition ownership from one generation to the next will look very different from a plan designed to retain a key sales leader.

There is no universal answer.

The best plans start with a conversation about the organization itself. Who are your people? What motivates them? What are you trying to accomplish? What happens if they leave?

Only then can you build something that actually fits.

The Mid-Market Faces a Different Reality

One of the biggest misconceptions that businesses commonly make is executive benefits are primarily for large companies. This is simply not true.

Twenty years ago, executive benefits were largely the domain of Fortune 500 organizations. Today, they are an essential part of success for many middle-market companies and essential to long-term business strategy.

Large organizations typically have depth. If someone leaves, there may be several people ready to step into that role. But when an employee at a mid-market employer moves on, the impact isn’t limited to just filling an open position. Momentum slows. Client relationships can suffer. Growth initiatives get delayed. Institutional knowledge disappears. The organization feels it immediately.

That’s why mid-market business leaders should think about executive benefits through a risk management lens. The most valuable asset inside their organizations is the group of people responsible for driving growth, maintaining relationships and creating value. Executive benefits help organizations protect those assets. In many ways, they’re one of the most important insurance policies an organization can have.

The Leadership Challenge Ahead

One of the clearest themes in the research is uncertainty. Ninety-four percent of employers say they’re concerned about the economy, and 95% say they don’t know exactly what to expect moving forward. At the same time, leadership transitions have become harder to predict. For years, many employers had a fairly good sense of when key leaders would retire and how succession would unfold.

Today, that’s far less certain. Some leaders are staying longer because they enjoy what they do and remain fully engaged. Others are delaying retirement because they don’t feel financially prepared to step away from their careers.

At the same time, we know a significant wave of retirements is still building. The result is a difficult balancing act. Organizations need the experience and leadership of key employees today, but they also need to prepare for what happens when those individuals eventually move on. Experienced leaders bring tremendous value. They preserve knowledge, maintain relationships and help drive long-term success.

But longer leadership tenures can also create bottlenecks. Advancement opportunities become limited. Future leaders have fewer opportunities to develop. Succession planning can become reactive instead of intentional.

I’ve often said that our clients can literally lose a person and lose a year. When a key employee retires unexpectedly, leaves for another opportunity or simply doesn’t have a prepared successor, the impact can be felt throughout the organization. Momentum slows. Decisions take longer. Relationships can suffer.

The Succession Gap Is Real

Perhaps the most important finding in this year’s report involves succession planning. Organizations understand the issue. Sixty-two percent say succession planning for key employees and leadership roles will be a major focus as those employees approach retirement. The challenge is that awareness hasn’t necessarily translated into action.

Nearly half of organizations report they haven’t implemented executive benefits strategies to support leadership transitions, and 71% say they don’t explicitly design executive benefits around succession planning.

Organizations know leadership transitions are coming. They know these people matter. Yet many are still relying on benefit programs that were designed primarily to keep people in place rather than support what happens when those people eventually move on.

Every organization evaluates the cost of action. Far fewer evaluate the cost consequences of doing nothing. When a key employee unexpectedly retires, leaves for another opportunity or creates a succession bottleneck, the impact can extend well beyond a vacant office. Organizations can lose institutional knowledge. Strategic initiatives can stall. The next generation of leadership can find itself under pressure before it’s fully prepared. This is why I don’t believe succession planning is simply an HR initiative. It’s about protecting the long-term success of the organization.

The Single Largest Competitor We Have

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the single largest competitor we have is lack of knowledge about the offerings.

Most organizations don’t wake up and decide not to take care of their key people. More often, they simply don’t realize these solutions exist. Others hear the term ‘executive benefits’ and assume it doesn’t apply to them because their most important people aren’t executives. None of those assumptions are accurate.

The organizations that often need these solutions the most are growing companies. They’re the organizations with 200 employees heading to 300. Five hundred heading to a thousand. Five thousand heading to ten thousand.

Those companies are being built by a relatively small group of highly valued employees. Retaining them, rewarding them and preparing for future transitions can have an outsized impact on long-term success.

There’s a reason virtually every Fortune 500 company has some form of executive benefits strategy. The companies that become great understand the value of retaining the people who make growth possible.

Employees Need More Than a Benefit

Another finding that stood out is only 28% of organizations believe employees completely understand their executive benefits. This shouldn’t be surprising.

The financial decisions facing highly compensated employees continue to become more complex. They’re making decisions about taxes, retirement timing, deferred compensation elections, wealth accumulation and long-term financial security.

A plan can be thoughtfully designed and still fail to create value if participants don’t understand it. That’s why the report shows employers placing greater emphasis on education, financial guidance and participant engagement. Notably, nearly a quarter of employers plan to increase NQDC education over the next 12 to 18 months. The value of a benefit isn’t created when it’s offered. It’s created when someone understands it, trusts it and can use it effectively.

Why Deferred Compensation Continues to Matter

Nonqualified deferred compensation plans continue to play a significant role because they help restore flexibility for highly compensated employees.

As qualified plan limitations increase and retirement planning becomes more complicated, many organizations are looking for solutions that give participants greater control over how and when compensation is received.

According to the NFP research, eighty-two percent of employers say deferred compensation plans have a high or moderate impact on overall plan success. Satisfaction with these plans has also continued to improve.

What’s most interesting to me isn’t simply that organizations are offering these plans. It’s how they’re developing them.

Organizations are focusing on participant education. They’re exploring more flexibility. They’re helping employees connect deferred compensation decisions to broader financial goals. This is where real value gets created.

Looking Ahead

If there’s one lesson from this year’s research, it’s that executive benefits are entering a new era. Attraction, retention and competitive compensation still matter in the war for top talent. But organizations are increasingly asking these strategies to do more. They’re using them to retain key employees, prepare them for succession and leveraging them to help highly compensated employees navigate increasingly complex financial decisions. And they’re utilizing them to protect the long-term success of the organization.

One of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed working in the mid-market is that we get to help organizations build toward the future. Every Fortune 500 company started somewhere. The companies that become great understand the importance of retaining the people who drive value, preparing the next generation of leaders and investing in the long-term success of the organization.

The question isn’t whether leadership transitions are coming. The question is whether your organization is prepared for them.