Have you ever had a candidate decline a job offer over a lack of good benefits? Wondering how you can improve your offerings to attract and retain quality people? Want to reward your employees’ hard work? National Employee Benefits Day, April 6th, offers you a chance to review your benefits and make sure they’re in line with what candidates want in today’s job market.
This National Employee Benefits Day, let’s look at how you can improve your offerings, to improve your chances with quality candidates, make your employees happier, and make your team more productive.
The Role of Provided Employee Benefits
You may have experienced your best employees leaving the company because they found better offers elsewhere. Increase your employee retention rate by first knowing why personalized benefits can make your team stay.
Your Benefits Package Should Inspire Confidence
Knowing that a company is willing to invest in a person makes that individual feel that they are wanted. By being generous, you are telling candidates that their skills and efforts matter to you as their prospective employer. You are also telling your employees that they matter.
A Happy Employee Experience Increases Productivity
Knowing that there’s something good waiting for you at the end of the day makes all your hard work worth it. The same goes for your employees. Having something to be excited about makes a person more eager to reach their goals.
Provide Security: How to Prepare Personalized Benefits
Preparing benefits based on each employee’s needs takes a lot of work and clear communication. You may approach this by speaking to your employees individually or as a team.
Organize polls and surveys to minimize the time you need to gather your data. Ask your Human Resources team or reach out to an outside firm to see how they can help you in this endeavor.
According to a Willis Towers Watson survey on Global Benefits, 50% of employees want higher pay, 67% would sacrifice pay for more generous retirement benefits, and 42% would give it up for better health benefits.1
Consider Age Groups and Generational Needs
The older your employees get, the more they may want better retirement funds and other things they can keep once they leave your company for good. Meanwhile, younger workers may ask you for training on how to progress in their career, or for tuition reimbursement. Think about what certain generations may need depending on their very different lifestyles.
Acknowledge Diverse Backgrounds in Your Workforce
With the help of surveys, interviews, and on-the-ground observation, make a list of unique circumstances your employees are experiencing. Try to answer them on your own by itemizing how you think they may be addressed. You will notice that some of them can be solved by the same set of benefits.
For example, if an employee suddenly ran out of their prescribed medication, or someone’s car broke down, both may benefit from emergency savings. Someone concerned over their student loan and another who borrowed from their retirement savings may both find it beneficial to undergo financial management training.
Make Meaningful Choices to Cater to Your Budget
Catering to every need in your workplace affects both your team’s joy in working and your company budget. Provide them options that aren’t too overwhelming in number, but list down enough choices that specific groups would benefit from. When choosing a few new benefits to include, consider which ones have more value but can be sustained by your limited budget.
Creative and Personalized Benefits to Consider
Every member of your staff has specific priorities. Build sustainable relationships with them by showing how much you appreciate their contributions to the company. Connect with them to identify their needs. Here are five unique benefits you may want to give each of them.
1. Trainings and Certifications to Expand Skill Sets
This applies to both your new and tenured employees. Improve the employee experience in your workplace by prioritizing your people’s growth. This may come in the form of training and certifications that can expand their skill sets.
Take advantage of this, especially for tech and marketing employees who would need to adapt to digital innovations quickly. Having your staff’s knowledge updated on a regular basis keeps your company more adaptable to shifting demands.
You can implement individual training courses or schedule ones for a whole department. Whichever you choose, will surely make their everyday tasks easier and more fulfilling to accomplish.
2. Education Assistance and Tuition Reimbursement for Upskilling
Education assistance is one of the best benefits you could ever offer.
You may have a few employees who would love to continue their degrees or further their studies but cannot afford to. Support them by sending them to the best university you can afford, or by shouldering part of their current tuition fees.
Similar to training and certifications, this can also benefit your company as a whole. Having a more educated team opens more opportunities for them in the company. This allows them to upskill or reskill according to what positions they think their new talents can fit into.
3. Home Office Allowance for Remote Work
Upgrade your company’s remote work experience by providing the components of a home office. The more comfortable your staff is to work at home, the more they can complete their tasks without any worries.
This may generously come in the form of new laptops, desktops, tables, and/or chairs. You may also choose to provide simpler things like a Wi-Fi budget or software platform subscriptions. Hardware maintenance and repair for older equipment can also be very helpful.
4. Leisure and Interest Budget for Everyone’s Enjoyment
Supporting your employee’s interests reminds them that you care about their happiness in and out of work. There are a couple of ways of allotting this budget. First, you may want to send them a birthday gift they will enjoy. It doesn’t have to be a ticket to some grand vacation, it could be a gift card for coffee or a free meal at a restaurant.
Another thing you could consider is creating social groups related to employee interests. They can participate in what interests them and then possibly win a reward: a book for the Book Club: game credits for the Gaming Club, spa coupons for the Wellness Club, and the list goes on.
5. Emergency Savings for When People Need Help
Saving for an emergency is important to all of your employees, even the higher earning ones. Did you know that 36% of workers earning more than $250,000 per year are living paycheck to paycheck?2 Life is too unpredictable for your employees to not have an emergency savings account. With it, they can take care of emergencies without worrying who to borrow money from. This includes a sudden rise in rent or an unexpected medical bill. By assisting them with emergency savings, employees can focus more on their work and finish tasks on time instead of focusing on the financial stress that an emergency can bring.
Employers can partner with an emergency savings platform that offers employees an emergency savings account that is funded by a payroll deduction where both employees and the employer contribute a certain amount into the account.
Provide Fresh Benefit Packages to Make Your Team Smile
Retain your best employees and inspire your whole team to be more productive through your kind generosity. Be the kind of employer who can keep them happy by prioritizing their needs and passion in life. Talk to each of them to personally know what you can do to improve their work experience today.
IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF YOUR TEAM’S WORK EXPERIENCE WITH ACS PROFESSIONAL STAFFING.
ACS Professional Staffing is a leader in staffing and workforce solutions. We successfully build sustainable business partnerships with our clients, candidates, and employees. We’ll help you attract the best candidates by working with you to give them the benefits they want and need.
Get in touch with us today!
References
1 Joanne Sammer. “Provide Security with Personalized Employee Benefits”. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/fall2020/pages/provide-security-with-personalized-employee-benefits.aspx . Published last August 25, 2020. Accessed last March 20, 2023.
2 Les Williams. “Workplace Emergency Savings: The Must-Have Benefit for 2023”. https://riskandinsurance.com/workplace-emergency-savings-the-must-have-benefit-for-2023/ . Published last February 2, 2023. Accessed last March 21, 2023.