Employment Benefits and Retention

Employment benefits are compensations, apart from the regular wages, that, in quite a number of cases, help employees decide to stay on with a particular company. These benefits are also often among the deciding factors for highly skilled candidates to consider joining the company.

Raising Retention

A good employment benefits program can, to a certain extent, help keep employees highly motivated and must improve employment relations. And, particularly if the program is developed, implemented and communicated properly, can definitely help raise retention or the ability of the company to keep its employees, particularly the quality ones. 

These employee perks – a number of them are required by laws on the state, local and federal levels; while the others are optional or left at the discretion of the employer – are also intended to provide additional economic security to employees.

Benefits such as workers compensation, social security and unemployment insurance are typically mandated by legislation; while benefits that companies may implement on their own typically include pension or retirement plans, dental plan, paid vacation leaves or vacation time, health care or insurance plan, disability insurance, sick pay or paid sick leaves, education reimbursement, food allowance, clothing allowance, life insurance, and flexible compensation. Some organizations also have employee discounts, recognition and reward programs, employee contact center, employee surveys, flexible work schedules and arrangements, and employee self service under their benefits program.   

Communicate Well

To build and manage an effective employee benefit program, you should be able to communicate well. You need to effectively spread the word about the program’s goals. The program should not be about merely complying with the law; it should be about letting your employees know that you are looking out for them, too. Communicate regularly – use traditional and the newer channels; use intranet, email, face to face, social media and even the traditional letter format – so that you can give employees a better idea of the benefits that the company offers.

If you’re planning on adding new benefits, you should definitely get to know your employees well so you can find out the benefits that they would appreciate more. You can also gain insight on the benefits that most employees consider important through the human resources team. The statistical data or the demographics of your workforce might also be able to give you an idea of the kinds of benefits that the majority would like.  

Implementing the employment benefits that most of the employees consider very important is what makes for a highly competitive benefits program. Among the employee perks that are considered very important are the health care plan or the health insurance. While most organizations have health care plans that cover just the employees, some companies have plans that also include the employee’s dependents. Another benefit that’s considered very important by most employees is the retirement plan or pension plan. You might also want to consider non traditional perks like wellness or fitness programs, parking privileges and loans for the purchase of computers or similar equipment for personal use.