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Essential employee benefits to consider for your business

UK businesses have a wide range of choice when it comes to investing in employee benefits. The decision you make can have a major bearing on how successful you are in attracting and retaining talent – and enabling them to be happy, healthy and at their best.

Here, we’ve provided a snapshot of employee benefits for you to consider – most of which we can help you with:

Group Private Medical Insurance

Give your employees access to fast private medical care and a range of additional benefits, including wellness apps and Employee Assistance Programmes.

Group Life Insurance

Ensure your employees’ families are financially protected in the event of their death by taking out a Group Life Insurance policy

Group Income Protection Insurance (AKA Sick Pay Insurance)

Get extra financial protection for your employees should they be unable to work due to illness or injury beyond the statutory sick pay allowance. Staff also get access to rehab services to help speed up recovery.

Group Critical Illness Insurance

Give your staff extra financial protection in the event they are diagnosed with a critical illness.

Group Dental Insurance

Allow your staff to get rapid dental treatment and checkups with a standalone private dental plan.

Health Cash Plan

Give staff access to everyday health and wellbeing services, such as physiotherapy, dentistry, optical care and more – up to a predetermined cash amount.

Key Person Insurance

Financially protect your business from the impact of losing an essential member of your team.

Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP)

A suite of self-help tools and professional counselling and/or advisory services designed to bolster the emotional wellbeing of your employees.

Staff discount schemes

Reward your employees with a range of discounts across health, leisure and retail services – all housed on a digital platform.

Corporate wellness programmes

Formulate a range of wellbeing benefits that support every aspect of your team’s mental and emotional wellbeing, including interventions like: wellness days, meditation classes, CBT tools, gym memberships, counselling services and more.

Lifestyle benefits

A broad area which can cover remote/hybrid working arrangements, gym memberships, discount schemes, parental leave and much more.

For FREE access to impartial advice and personalised quotes, email [email protected] or call: 01273 974419

Why offer an employee benefits scheme?

An employee benefits package is a key weapon in the armoury for any business looking to recruit and retain talented employees. An employee survey by QuickBooks, revealed that almost half (48%) of workers feel benefits would make them stay at their job even if another company offered them a raise, while nine in ten claimed they’d give up a 5% raise in exchange for more benefits. 

Another recent survey concluded that the talent shortage is at a 15-year high which suggests the importance of delivering an enticing benefits programme is increasing.

The best employee benefit schemes provide effective health and wellbeing support to the whole team, helping them remain happy, healthy and motivated. The business itself stands to benefit in unnumerable ways, including through:

We’ve worked with Engage for almost three years now and nothing has been too much trouble for them. They are very knowledgeable and incredibly supportive, especially during the annual renewal process for our healthcare benefits

Paul Mudd, Head of Reward, Boohoo

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Find the right employee benefits scheme for your business

At Engage Health Group, we’re experienced in designing, implementing and managing employee benefit packages for companies large and small. Find out more about the expert advice and guidance we offer on:

“Engage Health Group were great. Quick to respond, knowledgeable and personable. They worked on an ideal plan for my business and it was up & running at pace.”

How we work with you

Learn & Understand

We begin by learning about your business, its current challenges and desired outcomes.

Share Intelligence

We provide insider knowledge into what business of a similar size and sector offer their workers.

Design & Create

We work out the best solutions for your business, present them to you and agree on timeframes.

Negotiate & Price

We liaise with ALL insurer and service providers to obtain the most competitive pricing.

Launch the Policy

We set up and implement the policy/scheme on your behalf to ensure a smooth start.

Raise Awareness

We provide bespoke literature and perform onsite presentations to promote benefits to staff.

Manage the Scheme

We handle the everyday management of the scheme so you don’t have to.

Review & Evaluate

We perform annual market reviews to ensure your scheme remains effective and competitively priced.

employee benefits

4 ways to improve any employee benefits scheme

Each business has its own unique culture. But certain pearls of wisdom apply to all companies whatever the industry, workforce demographics or budget. In our experience the following considerations are often overlooked by businesses with an established benefits scheme.  

1. Blend your approach

Placing all your focus in just one camp can leave your benefit provision lacking. An insurance-heavy approach (Group Health Insurance and Death in Service, for example), whilst excellent to provide, can leave staff disengaged, as these types of benefits are only realised when staff are unwell or the worst happens. They are the benefits they hope they’ll never need!

A wellness-heavy approach (gym membership and stress management services, for example) is proven to make staff feel more engaged as the benefits can be utilised more frequently. However, they aren’t much use if someone needs physiotherapy or an urgent diagnostic scan.

When piecing together an employee benefits scheme, a blended approach can deliver the best of both worlds.

2. Promote and communicate

Once you have decided upon your benefits strategy, it’s important to educate your employees. They need to know what they have and how to use it, otherwise the benefits will likely to become redundant and unappreciated. 

If you are using an independent intermediary to assist you with sourcing, devising and implementing your benefits provision, do ask them to assist in how best to communicate the finished article to employees. Any good intermediary/benefit consultancy will be happy to deliver employee presentations, develop bespoke written guidance and spend time at your premises to answer employee questions and promote the value being provided.

3. Manage in one place

Many organisations make the mistake of managing different types of coverage across separate departments. For example, insurance policies such as Group Medical Insurance and Business Income Protection are sometimes managed by a finance department, whereas wellness provision such as Health Cash Plans and Health Screening are managed by HR. 

This compartmentalised approach reduces the opportunity to drive cost efficiencies. If your business is working with multiple insurance service providers via different business departments, it’s likely you will pay more overall, encounter greater confusion and find it increasingly difficult to achieve your overall objective.

4. Measure success

Even if you are spending a small percentage of gross payroll on benefits, continuous review should be a priority. Some key questions to ask:

  • What are we getting from our current benefit provision?
  • Is it still valued by staff?
  • Do our partners/providers align with our company culture?
  • Are we paying too much?
  • Is it effective?

An annual review (as a minimum) will help avoid stagnation, maintain relevance and ensure businesses get the best possible return on their investment.

Are employee benefits taxable?

The tax status of employee benefits varies according to the specific policy in question.

Business Health Insurance: Insurance premiums are usually classed as a Benefit in Kind which makes it taxable – this is normally paid for by employees through payroll. However, Business Health Insurance also attracts Insurance Premium Tax (IPT), but this is automatically included in the cost of the premium.

Group Life Insurance: There is good news for both employer and worker. The premium is usually allowable as a business expense, so tax can be claimed back on it. Meanwhile the employee is not taxed on the value of the premium. The policy is also kept in a ‘discretionary trust’ so it avoids liability for Inheritance or Income Tax.

Group Income Protection: Essentially, there is no tax liable from employee or employer until a payout is made, in which case it’s taxed via PAYE as per the normal wage. Furthermore, it’s usually an allowable business expense for the employer too.

Group Critical Illness cover: The employee will need to pay tax on the value of the premium. HMRC will alter the tax code to reduce their tax-free personal allowance – the reduction will be the equivalent of the value of the premium the business is paying for them.

On the plus side, the policy is paid out as a tax-free lump sum. It’s also considered a business expense which means the business can claim back against Corporation Tax.

Business Health Cash Plan: The same as above the employee will need to pay tax on its value via payroll and the company can claim it as a business expense.

Key Man Insurance: Is also normally treated as above – though there are possible exceptions.

Health Screening: In most cases, a single health assessment and/or single medical check-up per employee is allowable each year as a tax-free benefit.

Employee Assistance Platform: An EAP is usually regarded as a business expense rather than a benefit in kind. Which is good news for the employee as it means they will normally avoid paying any tax on the benefit. However, there are exceptions.

  1. If the EAP is made available only to a small group, such as a management team, then it can be classed as a Benefit in Kind – and therefore those included will need to pay tax on it.
  2. If an employee’s friends or family are included within the remit of the EAP, this may change its tax classification. For example, if an EAP service solely benefits a friend or relative, then it will be transformed into a Benefit in Kind for tax purposes. To avoid tax liability, ensure that any services which benefit friends and family also benefit the employee.

Contact our expert team to learn the most effective methods for implementing employee benefits policies into your business. Contact [email protected] or call 01273 974419.

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