Employee benefits are an essential tool for any business serious about supporting the wellbeing of their workforce and boosting staff recruitment and retention. The basic idea is to ensure your whole team is happy, healthy and productive – a recipe for ongoing success for business and employee alike.
In this blog post, we look in more detail at the key employee benefits objectives and how different perks support them.
Need help finding the perfect blend of employee benefits for your business and staff? Contact our independent team at +44 (0)1273 974419 or click on the bottom right chat box for advice and FREE market-wide quotes.
What are the main employee benefits objectives?
A QuickBooks survey revealed how almost half of workers feel benefits would make them stay at their job even if another company offered a raise. So, it’s unsurprising that recruitment and retention are the key reasons why businesses invest in employee benefits – getting it right can make a big difference.
However, there are a range of other motivations at play – for employer and employee alike. Below we have listed a handful – many of which are interconnected.
Employer objectives:
- To attract the best talent out there
- To hold onto your best people and keep staff turnover low
- To boost employee productivity
- To protect the wellbeing of staff, fulfilling the employer duty of care
- To respond to current industry demands and remain a leading employer in the eyes of current and prospective employees
- To match or better other competitors
Employee needs:
- To protect their health and wellbeing, as well as their family’s health – 9 in 10 employees place ‘health’ as their top life priority.
- To improve their motivation towards company and work
- To improve their wellbeing on all fronts – boosting productivity and giving a sense of control in their lives
- To feel valued and rewarded by their company beyond the wage structure
- To improve financial security
Employee benefits to get things started
After establishing your business objectives, it’s time to create a benefits package to support it! It’s never a case of one type of benefits versus another. It’s how they blend together to provide holistic support which really matters.
Health and wellbeing
Including a selection of health and wellbeing employee benefits is vital to a successful benefits plan, helping to address employee engagement, sickness absence, productivity levels, and employee loyalty.
- Business Health Insurance: a form of private health insurance which covers groups of employees via a range of proactive and reactive medical interventions. Read more about Business Health Insurance and what it typically includes.
- Health Cash Plan: supports everyday health and wellbeing, such as physiotherapy, osteopathy, diagnostic scans and counselling. Learn more about what’s included in a Business Health Cash Plan.
- Group Dental Insurance: Can also be included within a health insurance scheme, but otherwise purchasable as a standalone policy. Learn more about Group Dental Insurance here.
- Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP): Created for the purpose of helping employees deal with emotional and psychological stresses whether big or small. Often included with health insurance or health cash plans. Discover more about how EAPs work and what they can do for employees.
- Corporate eyecare: Often delivered alongside dental plans or within Health Insurance and Cash Plan schemes. In growing demand for many office-centred businesses.
- Employee Benefits Platforms: As well as housing a company’s employee benefits in one easy-to-access portal, benefits platforms give employees the ability to access the benefits and support they most need – creating a more personalised experience. Read our guidance on Online Benefits Platforms.
Lifestyle and rewards
Health and wellbeing isn’t the only issue high on an employee’s agenda. To boost retention levels even more, businesses must go beyond simply providing healthcare benefits and investigate what it is their employees prioritise in their everyday lives. Including some workplace perks that target staff’s lifestyles whilst rewarding them for their efforts at work will help attract top talent to the business.
Lifestyle and rewards to consider include:
- Remote working options
- Flexible working hours
- Extra holiday entitlement
- Parental and care leave / support options
- Retirement benefits e.g., pension contributions, financial planning support / services
- Travel expenses covered
- Cycle-to-work scheme
- Gym discounts / fitness classes
- Free counselling sessions / mindfulness classes / access to private mental health services
- Employee discounts / voucher schemes
- Bonuses e.g., positive contributions / hitting predefined targets
Financial protection
Financial protection is another important area to address, perhaps now more than ever. The following policies are variously designed to protect employees and their families against a loss of earnings from illnesses, injuries, and death:
- Group Life Insurance: provides financial support to an employee’s loved ones in the vent of their death. Read our guidance to Business Life Insurance here.
- Group Income Protection / Sick Pay Insurance: Not only does it provide financial support to employees laid low by illness (beyond statutory sick pay), it also provides practical support to help employees get better sooner. Learn more about Group Income Protection.
- Group Critical Illness: Provides financial support for employees suffering from a critical illness as defined by the policy. Find out how Group Critical Illness works in more detail.
- Relevant Life Insurance: Essentially, a Life Insurance policy designed for a single employee or company director. More tax efficient than taking out a personal policy. Learn more about Relevant Life cover here.
- Key Person Insurance: Protects the business against losses incurred due to the absence of a business-critical employee. Learn more about Key Person Insurance in our detailed guide.
Training and development
The last section to target is career progression and personal development. Most people want the opportunity to progress – they don’t like standing still with no hope of moving forward. Providing training opportunities proves that you want them to reach the best of their abilities.
Training and development can include:
- Free educational courses
- Personal development days
- Networking events
- Team events
- 1-2-1 coaching and meetings
- External training courses
- Group discussions / meetings
- Opportunity to shadow colleagues
5 ways to achieve your employee benefits objectives
Every industry has its own set of challenges, and each business its own unique structure and financial heft. However, there are some golden rules that businesses can follow to help them achieve their employee benefits objectives and ensure their benefits venture is as successful as possible.
- Always take a blended approach: we often see companies make the mistake of leaning too heavily on one area. But providing a balanced mix of health and wellbeing support, financial protection, rewards and personal development opportunities gives you the best chance of reaching your objectives.
2. Promote and communicate employee benefits after investing: how else are your staff members going to know what is available to them? Yet this is too often overlooked. A broker like Engage can help introduce benefits to your teams and understand how they can use them.
3. Manage benefits under one plan: particularly important for businesses with an international footprint. Often we see companies separately managing benefits for different business units when they could be brought together in one place, reducing paperwork and driving efficiencies in the process.
4. Constantly measure success: stay up to date with staff feedback, review usage statistics and absentee rates, always review current insurance schemes before renewing (again, we can do that for you!)
5. Get some extra help: speak to an independent employee benefits and insurance broker to help manage employee benefits and achieve superior value for money.
Get extra support at no extra cost
Finding the right employee benefits for your business is a process that takes careful consideration. Receiving help from a specialist employee benefits and health insurance broker can ease the burden on overworked HR teams at no extra cost to your business.
Engage Health Group Ltd offer expert assistance free of charge, advising on issues surrounding employee benefits and health insurance schemes. We will source FREE quotes tailored to your business, help implement your chosen benefits schemes and provide assistance with claims.
Contact us at [email protected] or call +44 (0)1273 974419 for FREE no-obligation advice and support.
