June 26, 2017

PrimePay - Rachel Fausnaught

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), one-third of organizations increased their overall benefit offerings in the last 12 months. Why? To remain competitive in the talent marketplace.

Attracting and retaining top talent is a challenge we often hear our small business clients discuss. And according to the SHRM survey, organizations must leverage their benefits packages to succeed. (Note: Participants of the survey were randomly selected from SHRM’s membership database.)

Only 6 percent of companies surveyed decreased benefits overall. Of those, large organizations (which the survey defined as 2,500 or more employees) were more likely to have decreased offerings.

Here’s what you need to know:

Out of the organizations that increased their benefits offerings, health and wellness benefits were most likely ones to experience growth.

Health

The majority of participants offered health care coverage to full-time employees and nearly all of them paid at least a portion of coverage costs. Sixteen percent covered the full cost of health care. The survey also revealed an uptick in the number of organizations offering coverage for part-time employees.

As the cost of health care continues to rise and become an important topic of conversation, companies are tapping into another area of coverage: offering to employees’ spouses and domestic partners. This helps employees save overall as well as provides convenience for families to have access to the same doctors.

Wellness

Twenty-four percent of companies increased wellness benefit offerings in the past 12 months. The most common benefit being providing wellness resources and information. Sixty-two percent explained that they provided wellness tips by way of email or newsletter at least quarterly.

Another common (and fast growing) wellness benefit was standing desks. Of the more than 300 benefits mentioned in the survey, providing employees with standing desks had the greatest increase over the past five years. The scary recent medical research proving that sitting for long periods of time affects your health is likely a driving factor of the standing desk trend.

Paid Leave

Paid leave is considered a very important aspect of overall job satisfaction by employees. Vacation is important for things like morale, wellness, performance, retention and productivity. When it comes to sick leave, 81 percent of companies said they offered paid time off for sickness.

Thirty percent of respondents said they provided paid maternity leave, including coverage by family or parental leave policies but excludes what is covered by short-term disability or state law.

Although 89 percent of employees surveyed were at least somewhat satisfied with their current jobs, 40 percent considered the possibility of seeking employment somewhere else in the next year. The top reason being for better compensation, followed by better overall benefits.  

Changes

The SHRM report suggests the following tips for what to consider when making employee benefits changes:

• Develop a communication strategy. This is to ensure employees are made aware of what changes are being made.
• Inform employees on why those changes are taking place.
• Give them time to plan and decide on their benefits choices.

Costs

It’s no secret that a small business’s budget is likely very tight. Considering how much of a substantial costs benefits are, it can be a tough reality to swallow that great packages are necessary to stay competitive in the talent pool.

SHRM offers up some great advice on how to leverage benefits:

• Conduct employee surveys to truly understand what benefits are most valued. Understand though, that conducting this survey will set expectations from employees that benefits might be improved so be sure you have your plan before deploying it.
• Benchmark your offerings against others in your industry.
• Ensure your benefits align with your organization’s values and culture. This will help foster employee engagement. The example SHRM gave is that if your company is keen on giving back to the local community, consider adding volunteer opportunities for employees.
• Get creative in managing the cost of benefits. One easy way is to implement consumer driven health plans like health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) or health savings accounts (HSAs).

To view the entire SHRM survey, click here.