A good employee benefit program will accomplish some targeted goals. First and foremost, it’ll give financial protection for the employees and their families in case of disability, illness, unemployment or death. Secondly, it’ll support the company’s productivity as a whole and promote positive employee morale. Lastly, it must serve as a recruitment tool, which will keep and attract quality talent without costing your company more than it is worth. For numerous business owners, designing employee benefits program that meets all criteria is a hard task indeed.
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Start your employee benefits program through including the basic and federally mandated benefits for employees. Such benefits include workers compensation insurance, unemployment insurance, and social security. Every business in the US should give at least these 3 benefits to assure employee protection in times of disability, injury or unemployment.
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Consider the optional benefits that are important to include. You’ll find that particular optional benefits have become the industry standards and you’ll have significant difficulty hiring and retaining talented employee without such benefits. For instance, life insurance, health insurance, and flexible compensation plans, retirement plans, and sick leave programs have every staple of benefits plans in numerous industries.
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Try adding extra benefits to the program. When your employee benefit program includes the basics, you would want to assess the perks including child care subsidies, telecommuting options, wellness or fitness programs, bonus plans, legal insurance, retail discount programs, flexible spending accounts, and tuition reimbursement programs. Such programs will give an extra edge in boosting employee morale and minimizing your employee turnover rates.
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Assess what benefits are most vital to each of your employees. You’ll have to survey your potential employees or current employees to determine what kinds of benefits to hold the most value for them. For instance, retail employees that are part-time will usually value greater percentage discount for an employee purchase over sales-based bonus plans while the company that employs a big number of working parents could find greater value in the child care subsidy benefit.
A Friendly Reminder to Note:
Remember that every benefit won’t offer the value level for each one of your employees. More and more business leaders are providing the required benefits, list of extra benefits that employees may choose and pick from, and the industry standards. Oftentimes, such extra benefits would require the employee to pay high premiums or contributions in order to participate or sign up.
The Bottom Line
Employee benefits are no doubt necessary. Designing a sound employee benefits program does not have to expensive or tough. The trend is more flexibility for the employees to pick what’s essential to them and for the employees to share in the overall cost. While majority recruiting conversations center on the salary levels, ongoing satisfaction of employees is influenced by what comes with their paycheck. So, make sure to keep everything important in mind when building employee benefits program as this can make a huge difference in providing convenience to each of your employees.
