What are International Employee Benefits?

Every company is different so there is no single answer. We would advise reviewing business need across a range of areas, including:

• company culture
• industry benchmarking
• age of the workforce
• volume of expatriates
• global mobility
• job role
• budget

It’s important to not rush any decisions and give yourself enough time to conduct a thorough review. Of course, you can also get expert advice from our independent team of insurance brokers.

To help you get started, here are a few things to consider:

1. Blend your approach

Placing all your budget in one area can leave your benefit lopsided and employees disappointed – unless you are just looking for protection in one area by design.

For example, an insurance-heavy approach (featuring International Health Insurance, International Business Life Insurance etc.), whilst excellent to provide, can leave staff feeling disengaged. This is because they are only realised when staff are unwell or the worst happens.

Alternatively, if you go heavy on a fun/wellness only approach, it 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. Nor does it provide much protection for your business.

However, by blending the two approaches you can deliver the best of both worlds.

2. Consider your locations and the cost of replacing staff

Different countries have different standards and requirements when it comes to employee benefits. For example, you’re forced to invest in a cost-heavy health insurance plan if you have staff in the US, but very few other staff benefits are mandated. The culture around employee benefits can vary greatly between countries and getting the balance right between global harmonisation and maintaining local expectations is important.

For expatriates, or key personnel in overseas offices, you also need to consider the costs of an attractive benefits package against how much it would cost to replace them. Failed expatriate assignments can be very costly as we elaborate further down the page.

3. Promote and Communicate

Once you have chosen your policies, it’s important to ensure people know what they have and how to use it. If you’re using an independent intermediary (broker/consultant) to assist you with sourcing, devising and implementing your benefits provision; ask them to assist in how best to communicate the finished article to employees.  Any good employee benefits consultancy will be happy to develop bespoke literature and spend time to help you promote the benefits and answer employee questions. We’ve heard from many businesses who made the mistake of investing in benefits without promoting them fully. The end result? Poor employee engagement.

4. Centralise and simplify

International businesses often have siloed benefits strategies for each individual country. This means they’re missing a trick. It’s usually because they are either unaware of the opportunity to have an all-inclusive international policy, or are concerned about following local requirements or customs.

Sometimes the problem is internal. Some organisations have different insurance mechanisms managed by different departments.  For example, the finance department might manage  International Medical Insurance and International Group Income Protection, whereas wellness provisions, such as International Employee Assistance Programmes and Pre-Assignment Screening are managed by HR.

Compartmentalising benefits across different areas of the business often inhibits a joined-up approach and reduces the opportunity to drive cost efficiencies and streamline administration. If your business is working with multiple service providers via different internal stakeholders, it’s likely you will pay more overall and find it increasingly difficult to achieve your overall objective.

5. Measure success

Continuous review should be a priority. This is true even if you are spending a small percentage of gross payroll on benefits or have them implemented solely to meet regulatory obligations. A few key questions should be asked:

• What are we getting from our current benefit provision?
• Is it still valued by staff?
• Have requirements or regulation changed?
• Do our partners/providers align with our company culture?
• Are we paying too much?
• Is it achieving its objective?

These questions should be asked on an annual basis (at least) to avoid stagnation, maintain relevance and to ensure businesses get the best possible return on their investment.