You want to attract top talent … and you want high-performers to stay with you for many years to come. So how do you bring on board the best of the best, and keep them loyal to you?
One hugely important way to do so is to have an outstanding job benefits package. We’re going to take a look at how to put together the perfect package and why this is so important for your employees.
Why Do Job Benefits Matter So Much?
You might think that you want to attract people who care deeply about the job itself—not about the benefits. Or you may feel that the salary you offer is so attractive, people won’t expect much more.
But for the majority of employees, the benefits package you offer will make a big difference to whether they come on board—and how long they stick around.
This is particularly the case post-pandemic, in the wake of the “Great Resignation”. With more options open than usual, high-quality job candidates may be interviewing at several different companies. You want yours to stand out and win that top talent. When it comes to your existing employees, you don’t want them to be tempted away by a better benefits package elsewhere, either.
How Can You Put Together the Perfect Benefits Package?
Employee benefits don’t need to be especially expensive in order to be highly valued by your staff members. You may find that some popular benefits don’t cost you anything at all … or even save you money.
Here’s how to come up with a benefits package that will impress, along with some key employee benefits to look out for.
Step 1. Consult Your Existing Employees
Before making any changes to your current benefits plan, run an anonymous survey of your existing employees. Ask them to let you know:
- What benefits they most value, out of what they currently have.
- What benefits they aren’t interested in, can’t use, or wouldn’t be at all likely to use.
- What benefits they’d love to see you provide, in addition to what they already have.
This gives you a great starting point for building your benefits package. If you find that no one’s interested in the employee discounts that you’ve negotiated with local companies, for instance, then you may want to ditch that scheme.
Conversely, if you find that your VTO (volunteer time off) scheme is hugely popular, then you will likely want to keep that in place.
Step 2. Make Sure You Cover the Basics
There are some core benefits that employees will generally expect you to provide. If your company doesn’t offer these, you’re going to end up scraping the bottom of the barrel when hiring—you definitely won’t be attracting top talent.
Make sure you have at least a good basic benefits plan in place for:
- Health insurance—beyond salary itself, this is what most employees will look at first. It’s the most popular benefit in the USA, and it’s one you really do need to have in place. In the US, medical benefits are offered by 83% of companies with 100 – 500 employees and 88% of companies with 500+ employees. Many employers will also offer dental insurance. An incredible 88% of employees would take “better health, dental, and vision insurance” into consideration when choosing between a high-paying job and a lower-paying one with benefits.
- PTO (paid time off)—employees will expect a minimum of 2 weeks PTO annually. If you can provide more, do. Unless you have to have a set number of employees in for coverage, you may be surprised that offering 3 or even 4 weeks of PTO doesn’t reduce overall productivity. That’s because your employees will be more refreshed and focused at work—and more inclined to give you their best effort.
To some degree, these two benefits can help sway a candidate toward accepting your offer even if the salary is on the low side. Good health insurance for employees plus family members can save them a lot of money … and many employees would be more than happy to sacrifice some of their salary for additional PTO.
Of course, it’s also vital to ensure you’re providing mandatory benefits that are required under federal law. You may not necessarily think of these as benefits—they include medicare and social security contributions, worker’s compensation insurance, and minimum wage plus overtime pay.
Step 3. Focus on Perks That Help You Save Money, Too
For the ideal win-win scenario, you don’t just want to offer perks that cost you nothing … you want to promote perks that will save your company money while keeping your employees happy and engaged.
Sounds impossible? Well, let’s take a look at two incredibly popular perks, and see why they’re a great win-win for your company plus your employees.
Flexible Working
NASSCOM Insights. @NasscomR. Top Benefits From #RemoteWork
Do your employees really need to be at their desk from 8 – 5, Monday – Friday? In most cases, it’s perfectly possible for their work to be done in a different way. Perhaps:
- Some employees would prefer to get a later start and work 10am – 7pm.
- Some would rather work 6am – 3pm and stop early to have more time with their kids.
- Some would like to work long days Monday – Thursday (e.g.7am – 6pm), then have all Fridays off.
Flexible working is hugely popular with employees, with 88% taking it into consideration when choosing between competing offers.
Offering flexible working isn’t just good for employees, though. It can also save your company money. If not everyone is in the office at the same time, that may mean you can reduce the number of desks and workstations you provide.
Remote Working (or Hybrid Working)
Do your employees need to come into the office every day … or at all? Covid-19 taught us all that remote working is a possibility for most jobs. Many employees, having had a taste of working from home, feel that this is something they want to stick with—at least some of the time.
Offering either fully remote or partially remote (hybrid) schedules can be a very attractive benefit for employees. It reduces commuting time and costs, means employees don’t have the distractions of colleagues in the same physical space, and often allows more flexibility about working hours too.
From your perspective as an employer, remote or hybrid working has two big benefits. One is that you’ll have a much wider pool of talent to choose from. If you allow fully remote working, you could potentially employ people on the other side of the world—or at least the other side of the country. They won’t need to relocate for their job.
You can also save a lot of money. Even if you have a hybrid system, with all employees in the office 2 days/week, this means you’ll only need 40% as much office space as you would with everyone in the office 5 days/week.
Summing It Up
If you want to attract (and keep) top performers, it’s not just about salary or recruitment strategies. You need to put together a job benefits package that matches up to what people really want. Get that in place … and you’ll find that your great hires stay loyal to your company for years to come.
Michael Dunlop is the Chief Operating Officer of Paradigm Digital Ltd and has extensive experience in business consultancy services.
