5 creative ways to unlock budget for personalized benefits and LSAs
How benefits leaders are finding room in the budget for personalized, flexible programs without asking for more money.
In this piece
Personalized benefits are at the top of everyone's wishlist. But when budgets are tight — and they almost always are — customizable programs like LSAs seem to get bumped down the list.
That doesn’t mean the door is closed. In fact, personalized benefits programs like LSAs are often implemented without having to secure new funds, but by taking a more strategic approach to using the budget you already have.
That's right: the smartest benefits leaders aren’t waiting for extra budget to magically appear (or gearing up for an epic battle with Finance). Instead, they’re reworking what's not quite optimized: the underused or duplicative tools, low-ROI programs, or spend that’s been on autopilot for years.
If you’ve been looking for a way to bring personalized benefits to your employees without having to ask for more money, you're going to want to keep reading.
Here are five practical, proven ways to unlock funding for an LSA.
1. Consolidate vendors to eliminate scattered spend
Here's the issue: Most companies already offer stipends for things like wellness, remote work, professional development, or commuting. But these programs are often siloed, unevenly used, and/or region-specific. Worse, each comes with its own vendor, contract, and administrative process. At Forma, we found that 80% of companies have at least 5-15 different perks in place, but with all that effort, engagement remains under 50%.
The fix:
Roll fragmented stipends into one centralized Lifestyle Spending Account (which, by the way, you can call anything you want!). You automatically reduce vendor sprawl, eliminate redundant admin work, and deliver a consistent experience across teams and geographies. This also cuts down on duplicative spending, per-program markups, and hidden service fees scattered across vendors and tools that add up fast.
Why it matters:
You’re likely overpaying for a “more is more” yet fragmented experience. An LSA consolidates your spend into one cost-effective platform and gives employees more flexibility and visibility into their benefits.
2. Reallocate unspent dollars from underused programs
Every benefits team has those line items: programs that sounded great on paper but quietly sit unused. Maybe it’s commuter subsidies in a hybrid world. Or a tuition assistance point solution that only a few take advantage of. Or perks that seemed like they’d be a fan-favorite, but have ended up gathering dust.
The fix:
Audit your current spend and identify consistently underutilized benefits. (Hint: Forma has a proven method to help you do this; it’s called our Benefits Value Assessment.) Then, when you have a clear picture of where you’re overspending and underutilizing, you can make the case to reallocate that budget toward a notional LSA that’s customizable and employee-directed.
Why it matters:
LSAs give employees the power to choose what matters most to them. That means higher utilization and better perceived value without increasing total spend. In fact, across Forma’s 300+ global customer footprint, we see 87% program utilization for LSAs.
3. Anchor your LSA to a specific use case
It can be tough to get buy-in on a new benefit program at full scale, especially if budgets are tight and scrutiny is high. At the same time, there are a multitude of areas where employees are saying they want support, from wellbeing to caregiving to financial health and more.
The fix:
LSAs don’t have to be all-encompassing — you have the ability to design your program to be as broad or narrow as you want. Get buy-in with a start-small approach, and anchor your LSA pilot to a clear, strategic use case. For example, maybe it’s Education Assistance and you introduce a program that’s designed to cover expenses related only to learning, courses, and tuition costs.
Why it matters:
When you pilot an LSA with a focused objective and measurable outcomes, it can be easier to build a case for later expanding the program. And you’d be in good company: Forma’s 2025 LSAs benchmark report found that dedicated, or use case-specific LSAs are growing more than twice as fast as All-inclusive LSAs.
4. Shift spot bonuses and gift cards into a cohesive benefits experience
Spot bonuses or gift cards are easy to spend on, but hard to track. Plus, they’re often taxed heavily, forgotten quickly, and provide little long-term value. And Mercer recently reported that while 58% of HR leaders say they’ve seen positive ROI from their approach to rewards and recognition, “there is still a long way to go to eliminate superfluous pages, portals, and platforms.”
The fix:
Channel that same gift card budget into personalized benefits that your rewards strategy. For instance, with a platform that consolidates multiple types of programs in one place, employees can still use the money in their account as a reward, but now it’s framed within a more intentional benefits experience. You also have more control over eligible categories, giving you the option to align rewards to company values.
Why it matters:
Recognition tied to personalized benefits can drive deeper engagement. And having all your spending accounts and rewards in a unified platform like Forma is a great way to deliver a cohesive, personal, and flexible experience around the culture you’re building.
5. Retire costly expense management tools for eligible benefits
Many companies still process benefits like wellness or learning reimbursements through general expense platforms. These tools were never designed for employee benefits, so the process ends up being clunky for employees, time-consuming for admins, and often comes with hidden costs. Seriously: some companies have employees request reimbursements through expense systems that charge $12 per claim, which can add up fast.
The fix:
Shift eligible categories (like wellness, professional development, or work-from-home support) into an LSA managed on a dedicated platform. This way, you avoid costly fees, simplify workflows, reduce extra vendor costs, and give employees a clearer, faster way to access their benefits.
Why it matters:
If you need to shift budgets around to get approval to invest in personalized benefits like LSAs, you can strengthen your business case by showing how you can offer a better program by shifting reliance away from costly, ill-suited tools.
How’s that for inspiration to make personalized benefits possible?
Ultimately, you don’t need a massive budget increase to make LSAs work. What you do need is some creativity and a fresh lens on how to best optimize the budget you already have.
Whether you’re consolidating, reallocating, or piloting something new, Forma helps benefits and total rewards leaders build flexible, customized, and cost-effective programs that have a real impact on employees — without having a negative impact on your relationship with Finance.
Looking to build your personalized benefits business case?
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