How To Personalize Employee Support Across Every Life Stage with Chris Locke

In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham talks with Chris Locke, Executive Director for Work + Family at Bright Horizons, about how employee benefits are evolving to meet the realities of modern life and work.

Traditional benefits packages were once built around a handful of standard offerings. Today, employers are being asked to support employees through a much wider range of life events and responsibilities, including fertility journeys, childcare challenges, menopause, eldercare responsibilities, and end-of-life care.

Chris explains why this shift is happening and what it means for HR leaders tasked with attracting, retaining, and supporting talent across an increasingly multi-generational workforce. The conversation explores the growing pressures faced by the "sandwich generation" – employees simultaneously caring for children and ageing relatives – and the significant impact caregiving responsibilities can have on wellbeing, productivity, engagement, and retention.

Bill and Chris also examine the growing complexity of benefits administration. Many organizations now manage dozens of benefits providers, creating fragmented employee experiences and making it difficult to demonstrate ROI. Chris shares practical insights into how benefits consolidation, personalization, and smarter technology can help organizations reduce friction and connect employees with the right support at the right time.

In this episode, listeners will learn:

• How Chris Locke's career journey led him from sales and innovation into work and family support
• Why employee support expectations have changed dramatically over the past decade
• The impact of a multi-generational workforce on benefits strategy
• How caregiving responsibilities affect employee wellbeing, productivity, and retention
• Why the sandwich generation presents a growing challenge for employers
• The importance of making benefits easy to access at the moment of need
• How personalization can improve employee engagement with benefits
• The hidden costs of managing 30-40 separate benefits providers
• Why benefits consolidation can improve both employee experience and ROI measurement
• How Bright Horizons is expanding from emergency care into expert guidance, planned care, and coaching
• Practical ways HR leaders can build a stronger business case for caregiving and wellbeing support

About Chris Locke

Chris Locke is Executive Director for Work + Family at Bright Horizons UK. He works with leading employers to develop solutions that help employees navigate the challenges of balancing work and personal responsibilities across every stage of life. His experience spans leadership, innovation, learning, and workforce support, helping organizations create more inclusive and effective employee experiences.

Key Takeaway

Employee benefits are no longer simply about offering perks. The most effective organizations are building life-stage support ecosystems that help employees navigate real-world challenges while improving retention, engagement, productivity, and business performance.

Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to HRchat, leave a review, and share this conversation with an HR leader who is rethinking their benefits strategy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:03

to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, 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_03 0:26

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello, listeners. This is your host today, Bill Bannham. And in this episode, I am delighted to be joined by Chris Locke, Executive Director for Work and Family over at Bright Horizons. Chris leads the work and family business, helping more than 1,400 employers around the world support their people through every stage of life, from fertility and childcare through to elderly care and end-of-life support. Prior to joining Bright Horizons, Chris spent more than 15 years building ventures and large-scale learning and leadership solutions for organizations including Barclays, BP, NG, and National Grid. During the conversation today, Chris and I will explore how changing workforce demographics, evolving employee expectations, caregiving responsibilities, and well-being challenges are reshaping people's strategies. We will also discuss what HR leaders are prioritizing right now and how organizations can better support employees, both inside and outside of the workplace. Chris, how are you doing? Welcome to the show today.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Hi Bill, really delighted to be here and thank you for inviting inviting me on.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

It's my pleasure. Now, as we like to do on this show before we get into the hard-hitting stuff, Chris, let's just uh let's learn a little bit more about you beyond my wee introduction just a moment ago. Maybe

Chris Locke’s Career Journey

SPEAKER_03 1:51

you can share for a couple of minutes a bit more about your career journey and what led you to the current role leading the work and family business at Bright Aaron.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Absolutely delighted to. So I started uh way back when in advertising sales, uh working at the Times uh for Mr. Murdoch, but don't hold that against me. Uh and actually I think um I think that's actually a kind of a great skill that's kind of served me well throughout my whole career, which has sort of kind of moved away to sales and much more into then products, HR, innovation and growth. And so I spent a couple of years doing sales and then moved into the education sector, where the majority of my time um was spent at Pearson, uh, which was a fantastic opportunity working uh globally with governments, universities, uh secondary schools. But what really kind of sparked my interest was the world of work and the evolving way of how uh upskilling and reskilling in a world of the new digital world was starting to be tackered by organizations. And so I spent a lot of my time at Pearson um working on what does the future of learning look like for with inside large companies. I worked on different kind of leadership programs, looking at introducing new styles, um, and and really talk focusing around innovation. And then after sort of Pearson decided to kind of move into the world of innovation consultancy, which sounds as I say as as it was great because actually what it did is it exposed me to a lot more organizations, particularly as they were thinking about the future of where their business is going. So a lot of the work we did was with energy companies around net zero, um, what the future of retail looked like, circular economy. And actually, part of my role that was thinking about well, if that's where those organizations are moving to, what are the capabilities, what are the skills that people are going to need to be able to kind of be able to sort of help that company get to where they're going to? And and that was great. And then COVID hit, and that need for that need for upskilling and reskilling through a crisis, it became even more important. And so I was very fortunate enough to be able to, um, with the support of the the rainmaking of the company I was with there, was build my own startup called Aspire, and that was helping um organizations kind of upskill and reskill their people around products, leadership and innovation. And that was great for a couple of years, and and then this opportunity for Bright Horizons came up. I'm a dad of four. Um, I've also got a dog, four cats, and so uh within it with an elderly nan and a mum who's gonna move into her 70s. And so, actually, when I started to realize about Bright Horizons, which originally was thinking, well, they're just nurseries, the working family was so much more, and what was kind of incredible with what they were looking to is they wanting to see kind of where kind of we're seeing trends happening to the need for the working family service becoming you know, not just increasingly um or required or more required in just in the UK, but globally as well. And so it felt like an opportunity that an organization that was kind of to see great growth opportunity, had an incredible client base, but also more importantly, for me it's a service that actually impacted people's lives positively and actually demonstrated really value back to um the organizations that are putting in that support for their people. So I've been with Bright Horizon now just over a year and absolutely loving it and delighted to be able to have the opportunity to people to talk to people like uh be at Disrupt HR next week, but also with with um a lot of the sort of the HR leaders across across the across the different sectors that we that we serve.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

Okay, very good. So in one sentence or less, Chris, um what's the best thing about your job?

SPEAKER_02 5:32

The the people and the clients. It's the without a shadow of a doubt. It's uh you know, I get huge energy from kind of being a people business and kind of working with working with our clients and sitting helping them sort of shape the future of their people's strategy and and and see the impact that we have on their and their people's lives and how that translates back into business performances is kind of what gets me up every day.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

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.

Disrupt HR Preview And Benefits Teaser

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Love it.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

So, listeners, as Chris mentioned just briefly there, Bright Horizons will be back on stage, back on the disrupt stage. In well, what are we now? We are World Cup Day number two. Um, so in about 13 days as we record this interview right now, come on, England. Um, and uh and uh Chris is gonna be one of our lightning talk victims, I mean one of our lightning talk speakers. Uh it'll be coming up for five minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide. Uh, it's at the Personio office on Charlesbury Avenue in Bloomsbury. If you are in the Greater London area and you're interested in all things to do with the world of work, be there or be a rectangle. Chris, in 60 seconds or less, because the uh the talk itself is only five minutes. So, in 60 seconds or less, uh, can you can you give our listeners a wee taste of what they can expect? And then we're gonna get into the details later in some of the other questions, but you know, some of those hopeful learning outcomes from from your talk. How do we kind of make benefits actually work for the people they're meant to?

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Um, with with the world shifting, the way it's shifting and how quickly it's shifting, what do we need to do to think about evolving that? And how do we make it from being just one size fits all to being really personalized and tailored? So it kind of that the few basically the future's the future is kind of the world of personalization around benefits to support a very different shaped workforce that we're going to be seeing over the coming generations.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Oh,

How Employee Support Has Expanded

SPEAKER_03 7:39

which is a fantastic lead-in to my next question, which is uh Bright Horizon supports employees across every life stage, of course. So you've given us a wee introduction to that. How is the definition of employee support changed over the past 10-ish years?

SPEAKER_02 7:55

That was a really great question. And I think you know, if I go back to my own career journey when I was sort of 10 years ago at Pearson, pretty much your benefits package was um, if you were lucky, it was uh your pension, if you see enough private medical insurance, maybe some life insurance and a cycle to work scheme, uh, which was pretty much sort of the foundation pillars. And as we've seen over the last 10 years, and particularly um, dare I say sort of post-pandemic, post-COVID, that has just exploded. And that really sort of starts to signify as um probably a number of sort of macro trends. So, for example, the typical institutions that we used to rely on, such as the NHS, adult social care, started to fail. The that burden of support to be able to keep employees engaged at work, be able to help to reduce some of that sort of mental load, has gone much more into the on much more into the employer. And so they're starting to see sort of this proliferation of different benefits from you know, whether that's whether that's looking after fertility through to menopause support now to end of life care, it's it's really started to sort of boom really around, you know, there is really much support for uh the different unique needs that that most organisations now see across the workforce. So it's become really from our perspective from what we see is is really far reaching and and it's great because employees do see um you know it's part of that making sure you've got what you need to show up to be a delivered, not just the best at work, but also to be able to sort of bring yourself best at home as well. Um, so it's it's yeah, it's fascinating to see how the how the sector's really evolved and the different levels of support. But interestingly, now you know from my point of view, I'm thinking it's it's a remarkable. I'm now watching some of my um sort of eldest son's generation into the workforce. And what I used to think was kind of like remarkable to have spirit offered to my client now now seen as, well, that's just stand-up. What else are you going to provide for me? So I think it's really interesting kind of where we've where we've come from, but also kind of where where we're about to go next.

Talent Retention In An AI Era

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Just as a quick follow-up question to that. Um, this pod is approaching 10 years old. I can't believe it. I've been doing it since uh I'd like to say since before I was grey. No, I think I was grey back then. Years ago, a lot of the conversations for for a number of years was around the war for talent. You know, how how to be how to be that employer brand of choice, the these sorts of these sorts of topics? It ain't like that anymore. There are lots of industries that are facing by 2030 20, 30 percent plus unemployment rates now and being replaced by AI and and and uh automation and such. Um are you guys seeing that trend now with because you guys work with lots of different companies in lots of different types of industries, of course. Are you seeing some companies that because they can be a lot more choosy about who they bring into the organization, which candidates they accept, and all the rest of it? Are some industries actually pulling back on certain benefits um because they feel like they don't need to offer them like they did a few years ago? Uh I'm guessing uh there's a lot of sort of gold standard companies that that would maintain the the the necessity for for those benefits because of all the the the um the productivity gains, for example, on having happy, healthier employees. What are you seeing out there in the market?

SPEAKER_02 11:12

When you talk to kind of HR, HR leaders, and we we did a survey back in February. So we kind of surveyed or interviewed 334 HR leaders of companies over a thousand employees plus, and number one in terms of both what they were measured success on and what they were trying to achieve, still related to talent attraction and talent retention. So interestingly, kind of I because it's the same narrative you kind of hear if you read some sort of the Doom stories, particularly on LinkedIn, you know, uh next professional service firm shutting like closing off 20 20,000 roles because they can't be upskilled for AI. But actually, we still see that need for talent really critical in front of mind of kind of HR leaders. And if you look at the PWC CEO survey, the talent still still sits up there as a sort of their top within their top five sort of top five concerns around sort of limit limiting to growth. So I think it's I think it's um despite some of the sort of the um maybe sort of the the articles get prominence, actually, it's still a critical um issue around around sort of the talent piece. And benefits is a key way of being able to kind of keep that employee engaged. You know, we see from from our data and from sort of the latest Gallup study that those who have got a highly engaged workforce or engaged employees deliver 23% better um profitability, 18% better productivity, 43% lower uh turnover, and can deliver up to three times total shareholder return for an organization for their organization versus something in the lower quartile. So whilst um those are some of those dynamics there, the the importance of having an engaged, talented workforce still kind of speaks to you, even in a world of kind of AI maybe coming coming for the roles. And probably even on top of that, what we're seeing is whilst AI is automating some tasks, even if some of those roles might sort of fall trade to them, actually, what we're seeing is that for those roles that are left are having to do more, but also more highly valued, and therefore that talent becomes even more critical. So it's a it's an interesting, it's definitely sort of an interesting um market that we're we're we're living in at the moment as everyone starts to kind of settle down and work out you know what does the future shape of their organization look like? What is workforce plan, what roles are potentially going to sort of go to a kind of be eliminated eliminated to AI, but similarly, you know, according to the World Economic Reformer, there'd be 190 million new jobs created thanks to AIC. There seems to be still a lot of opportunity out there, and and and making sure you're getting the right talent to do that is gonna be is gonna be key.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

And I guess in terms of retention as well, it helps, right? There's this um there's this newish term out there, job hugging. Have you heard that one? I haven't heard that one. So job job hugging, the the the the essential notion is um folks are a bit more fearful about being replaced by AI. They're holding on to where they are at right now and not not not so interested in in uh moving away. And I I guess if they've got a good benefits package, that's another reason why you're gonna keep your your best thing. Very much so. Love it. One more three-word answer there, very much so. Okay,

Multi-Generational Needs And Personalization

SPEAKER_03 14:16

how let's talk now about uh changing workforce demographics. Uh from what you're seeing and and some of the reports you've mentioned so far already. Uh how how are changing workforce demographics and employee expectations influencing decisions around benefits, flexibility, and workplace culture?

SPEAKER_02 14:33

I heard the term multi-generational workforce used quite quite a lot in my career, but actually I think this is probably the first time where it feels like it is truly multi-generational than most generations in the workplace at one time where you've got, you know, dare I say Gen Z, whatever that might mean, but kind of that entering the workforce at the fastest rate ever. You've got people staying in roles for longer as retirement ages increases, but also the inability to kind of retire because of the cost of living. And then the middle of that, like myself, the sandwich generation, which has got sort of dual care and responsibilities for young families of not just babies, but kind of young teens, young adults, as well as elderly relatives, that is providing kind of for benefits, is a really kind of complex environment for them to navigate, simply because you know, a one-size doesn't fit all, and that needs around what someone is coming in at the start of their career is requiring at the end of their career, but also what their expectation levels are is making it a really kind of interesting and slightly tricky feel for HR leaders leaders to navigate. But I think what what we're starting to see is is, and this is where some of the technology um developments are going to start to, I think, kind of become more important, which is um that flexibility, driving the right workforce culture, it needs to be personalized. You know, as I say, the one size fits all doesn't really work. And when I when I started to say you know you you're delighted to get a pension, private medical insurance, and the cycle to work scheme. Now it's it's much more kind of unique. And and actually, what I don't want to do is I you know we're seeing that Gen Z don't want to kind of have to go and find the benefits, they want them to sort of supported to them. They want a bit like how they might kind of look at order and delivery or Spotify, that that instant kind of like I just should be able to be served and personalized to me because that's the experience they have through all other aspects of their life. Um, through to then for supporting that sandwich generation, where we can start seeing now they are on work operating at from our latest research that we did that we do something called the Bodhisattva Index, that population is twit say they are 29% of them operate at a consistently high high level of stress. Um, and 43% of them are looking to change jobs because of their caring needs. Now, as a as a benefits leader, that those tend to be the most sort of middle senior managers. Normally, you're looking at a replacement cost of anywhere between 90 to 100,000 in terms of cost, but then productivity drops will stop. So, how do you then make sure you are shaping your benefits that really support and give and give them and and not just shape them and provide them, but how do you make people aware of them? So, as you start to see these um trends happen, part of the challenge that uh we see is actually how do you make the people who need them, the point they need them aware of what they have and make it really easy for them to engage with it and make it flexible. So it might be for this next six months, I need to increase kind of care to support my nan who's about to go into a care home. But actually, next and after that, my my daughter might be starting university and navigating some of the challenges there. I might need some additional support around how I can provide you know kind of parenting and support her through that through that process. So that flexibility and awareness is is definitely something as the the shifts in generations happening, benefits in have become a lot more smart about how they deliver the right personalized solutions at the right time to the right populations and have it segmented versus just this being like the old internet of like here's your benefits page, go hunt. Um, and it's and that and that that's that's starting to um you know provide both opportunity but also significant challenges for organizations to keep pace with that.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

You have

Building ROI And Cutting Benefits Friction

SPEAKER_03 18:21

conversations with uh HR leaders all the time, maybe recapping a wee bit of what you've explained so far and and adding a bit more to it. Give us a couple of minutes now to explain how HR leaders can build that compelling business case, you know, when they're at the top table for investing in family support, caregiving resources, and employee well-being programs.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

So the way HR leaders can be building compelling business cases, you know, it it really is to start and see they can see it through their employee kind of engagement surveys of kind of what what's happening there, and actually the impact of that we can see through through research that shows that a highly engaged workforce are not only more productive, uh they're more profitable, they drive better profitability, but also they're not looking to change jobs. And so actually, when you look at that total cost of you know recruitment, uh of having to replace roles, of having to um sort of you know losing people to sickness versus also the productivity gap, you know, that that that for me is the that is a really compelling case. Some of the challenges though they've they face is um and what we see is with a lot of the clients that we work with is when it's starting to put the the case for benefits, because I would say sort of post-COVID, what we've seen is you know, most of our benefits teams are managing between 30 to 40 different providers. And what that does is it although it provides choice, actually from a user perspective, it it creates rather than taking mental load off of the individual, it's creating more mental load. So we we um had an example, we were working with a global tech company the other day, and they just showed us their their benefits page for the employees around family care. In that single page, which involves from from everything from becoming a new parent to having school-aged children to having teenagers, they had 11 different providers across a relatively small part of their benefits portfolio. Um, and some points they were offering two different providers for the same service. What you've just done is to say to the say to the end sort of employee, but by the way, we know you need this, but we're gonna make sure you now need to register with 11 different companies. We've got 11 different types of policies, some that you'll get for free, some that you'll do KPA, or by the way, you're gonna get your inbox bombarded with 11 different types of messages. So, actually, what we see then is is whilst the there's a real clear case of by providing benefits to create an engaged workforce, the actual experience is is is means that it's really it's a lot of friction, it's hard to engage with. And then actually, from a from a uh HR point of view, because those that data sits in 11 or different providers' systems, to aggregate that, to understand patterns to incite impact and so insights, impacts, utilization, it's really difficult. And that gets put back onto the HR team to do that. And the challenge is they they lack the data and the systems to be able to aggregate that data and pull those insights out without a lot of a lot of manual um workarounds. And that's just time, frankly, they don't have because they're managing a multiplit of other different things, as well as the 30 or 40 just day-to-day relationships with providers. So I think kind of the case is clear, kind of when you when you demonstrate kind of offering benefits that help drive that engagement. I think some of the challenge they they face is being able to take a step back. And actually, what we're starting to see is a consolidation in the benefit space around some of these areas because it's just unmanageable and it's stopping the HR and the benefits team being able to have a strategic conversation with their senior leadership or with the FD or with the CEO around. Around what they need to be doing to support their workforce, because they are just literally firefighting some of the data, data they admin. So I think that consolidation is going to help um address some of that. And then the other the second part to that is being able to provide sort of data and systems that kind of aggregate. What's been really interesting, having been on the ND world for a long time, is that feels like it's light years ahead of where the benefit space has been. A lot of it's still very manual workaround and um and trying to extract data out of ERP systems is a thing which you know would uh kind of been referred to like Dante's ninth circle of hell. So it you know, we we're not making it easy if HR needs to build that compelling case because they will need to be able to demonstrate the ROI. So I think if we can address some of the systems issues um and we can help sort of sort of take away, make some of that, reduce some of that friction from the employees being able to access the benefits and have them served in a in a really kind of joined up way, that will improve utilisation, that then helps us reinforce that engaged workforce, which makes them a much more compelling business case. So it's uh it's uh it's not it sounds it sounds simple when you say it like that, but it's definitely not an easy thing. And that's something which is very much top of our mind as we work with our clients on how can we enable that for them so they are able to kind of kind of use their own data rather than taking sort of just benchmarking data or sex data to be able to play back tangible impact of of of the services that they offer for their people and the and the value it delivers to to not just them but to the broader organization.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Okay, lovely. Thank you.

Bright Horizons Beyond Emergency Care

SPEAKER_03 23:35

We are coming towards the end of this show, just a couple more questions for you. Next up, what are you guys doing then uh at work in family to help HR leaders successfully navigate some of these changes? It's a great question.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

And so work in family has has traditionally been built on being able to provide emergency care. So when care breaks down, you need a childcare urgently, you need someone to come look after your dad after a fall, and you've got to go traveling for work. That's typically where we've we've played for a long time. Where we're seeing now to help sort of HR leaders navigate these changes is actually moving beyond just that emergency care. And looking, how do we provide sort of that long that those um services around thinking given access to expert support and guidance for working families and carers? So things like understanding that concierge. So when you if you are having a parent who's got uh diagnosis around um and requires care, you can actually start to an uh an expert who can help you navigate the choices and look at the different care choices available to you, but also provide things like speak to an expert. So, you know, whether it might be around weaning through to how do I manage sort of teenage children who might seem to be disengaged. So there's a range of sort of different experts, so it's supporting not just when care breaks down, but all the bits in between that can that a lot of the parents and carers have as a lot of heavy mental load, and then it's been able to provide not just emergency care but also planned care solutions. So things like offering support, how we can build workplace nurseries, looking at um nursery partnerships to help reduce the child cost of child care living, as well as things like our school holiday clubs where parents know when holiday school holidays are coming. The ability to be able to book some of that support and advance rather than waiting until there's a point of crisis is something that just helps them reduce that stress. And then finally, as we talked about with the evolving need of work and people's roles, is to support them with coaching, but also the sort of new new upskilling and reskilling programs that help organizations kind of move and help their people sort of meet the evolving needs of their roles as the business kind of continues to change. So those three pillars together um at the scale that we do, so not just in the UK, but in the US as well as India and increasingly more globally, allows us to be a global partner to our clients and help them support um their working parents and carers kind of wherever they are across those different needs.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Just finally

How To Connect And Closing

SPEAKER_03 25:55

for today, Chris, how can folks connect with you? So is that LinkedIn? Do you want to share your email? I bet you're a super cool dad who's all over TikTok and places. And of course, how can folks learn more about Bright Horizons?

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Uh so uh by all means, please connect with me on LinkedIn. I have been banned from my children from ever going on TikTok or Instagram um for fear that their friends find me and I'm doing dad dancing. Uh, but yeah, please connect with me on LinkedIn. Otherwise, you can reach me at chris.lock at brighthorizons.com. Uh, for those of you attending the disrupt HR at uh in London, I look forward to seeing you there.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Rock and roll, that just leaves me to say for today, Chris Locke. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much for joining me for your first time on this show. I'm sure I'll be bothering you to come back on again in the near future. And listeners, as always, until next time, happy working.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

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