One of the most overlooked elements in any business is employee benefits.
If you’re a small company, you’re more interested in getting started and scaling effectively, which usually means focused hiring.
If you’re a larger company, it can be difficult to understand what exactly needs implementing and depending on staff numbers, can become an expensive experiment.
The problem is, in today’s market, employee benefits are more important than ever for both retaining talent and attracting new people. Over 75% of employees say they’re more likely to stay with a company because of the benefits package, which is a number you can’t really ignore.
On top of this, it’s important to remember that your benefits package also impacts your overall brand. If you’re spending time on creating a strong culture and an exceptional reputation in your market, why ruin it by not doing the same with your staff.
With that in mind, this is why we’re exploring why you need to start placing more emphasis on your employee benefits.
What is a benefits package?
A benefits package is the common name for any non-salary compensation that an employee can expect to receive.
This can differ across various industries and employers, with some businesses even tailoring their benefits package based on the employee in question.
A more senior position that requires more experience, for example, may receive a different package based on the specific needs or demands of the role.
In many cases, benefit packages are made up of either non-monetary bonuses that still add value, such as extra holiday, company cars or flexible working, or additional monetary bonuses based on performance.
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Why should you offer a benefits package?
In the modern workplace, we’re starting to see the lines blur between benefit packages and company culture. Increasingly, it’s becoming expected for employers to offer a certain level of benefits, provided the employee is delivering value for the business.
Take flexible working, for example. Perhaps the most talked about benefit today is the idea of working from home, which, while much more accessible than it was ten years ago, is now often seen as an expectation rather than a specific benefit an employee may receive.
While this specific example doesn’t apply to every industry and employer, it demonstrates the changing attitudes to what a benefit actually is and how important it is for employers to start delivering real value in their compensation strategy.
The thing is, the different types of benefits you can offer are vast, meaning there’s no real limitations other than your budget and the culture you’re trying to build. The key is in providing something that suits your employees and their lifestyles.
What kind of benefit packages are there?
Below is a breakdown of the various benefit packages you may see in the professional sector:
Flexibility and work-life balance
As employee mental health and wellness takes a front seat in the employee relations sphere, we’ve seen a big transition towards hybrid working and the option for flexibility in working hours, to allow for things such as school drop-offs.
It is vital to offer hybrid working to remain competitive in the recruitment marketplace; you are cutting off as many as 95% of candidates by not offering at least one day per week from home. Good companies should have core working hours with flexible start and finish times built around this window.
Likewise, many employees are less inclined to leave existing roles or move for jobs if it means a potentially worse work-life balance. Increasingly we’re seeing businesses look at: shared parental leave, reskilling and upskilling for employees returning to work after a career break, mental health support and occupational health expertise as standard.
The expansion of benefits
In a cost-of-living crisis, the importance of a fair and decent basic salary is stressed.
However, the candidate-short market has meant that where the salary of a role cannot be increased, the decision a candidate faces when choosing to accept or decline a role can come down to the benefits.
A qualified accountant will expect a car allowance with any role these days, and bonus schemes should be offered from roles paying £45,000 or more.
We have seen a larger proportion of candidates interrogating pension schemes, holiday allowances and private healthcare as part of the entire package. If you want to be a leading name in the recruitment market, offer excellent childcare vouchers and benefits that matter to your employees. 20 days annual leave and an autoenrollment pension is not a benefit.
Employee empathy
Companies in droves are beginning to offer paid menopause leave, enhanced paternity leave and bereavement leave, and even some who now offer the infamous ‘pawternity leave’ for new dog owners. Whilst the latter may seem less important, it is again a natural consequence of the shift towards good employee relations.
If you don’t have processes in place to offer an enhanced leave scheme during the most important times of your employees’ lives, then you can expect a competitor to tempt them away – as they are no doubt planning parenthood and their long-term tenures with this in mind.
