If you’re running a healthtech company today, your Chief People Officer (CPO) is likely managing more strategic risk than almost any other executive on your leadership team.

Between rapidly rising healthcare benefits costs, growing pressure from CFOs to control spend, AI-driven workforce shifts, and retention challenges that vary dramatically by role, the people function has become one of the most complex (and consequential) parts of the business.

After speaking with CPOs across health tech, including peers and close colleagues, one thing is clear: we are not talking nearly enough about what these leaders are actually navigating day to day. The reality goes far beyond traditional HR metrics like engagement scores or time-to-hire.

As a long-time people leader, I wrote this piece because I often see founders building healthcare solutions for employers while overlooking what their own head of people is facing internally. If you want to understand the pressure points shaping workforce strategy in health tech right now, start with benefits.

For many employers, healthcare benefits have quietly become one of the largest cost centers on the balance sheet.

According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, families now pay roughly $27,000 annually for health coverage. When employer contributions are factored in, benefits routinely land among the top three expenses, alongside payroll and technology.

This reality is especially painful for health-tech companies. These organizations sell healthcare solutions, which creates an expectation among employees that benefits will be generous, modern, and easy to use. At the same time, many health-tech companies are venture-backed, cash-conscious, and under constant scrutiny to demonstrate financial discipline.

CPOs are caught in the middle.