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.

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