The benefits businesses provide to employees can be a great way to express their business values, says Frank Mengert
Smart business owners know their employees are one of their most valuable assets. Without a supportive team, an organization can’t progress toward its goals.
However, finding qualified employees takes more than just offering a competitive salary. Many individuals in today’s workforce are looking for stability with their employers. This often requires looking for businesses willing to invest in their teams – both financially and professionally.
Employee benefits packages are a great way to help your business stand out as one of those organizations. However, like any investment, businesses need to know where and how they see positive ROI. Thankfully, there are many different areas where businesses can experience real, tangible benefits from the benefits packages they put in place for their employees.
Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
Considering the competitive job market across multiple industries, businesses need to have a solid strategy for attracting and keeping qualified talent. Offering comprehensive benefits packages is a great way to achieve this.
Bringing in More Qualified Talent
There is no question that all job candidates want to make sure they’re adequately compensated. However, a paycheck alone is often insufficient to encourage someone to apply for an open position.
Offering a benefits package, on the other hand, is a major differentiator that can lead to more applicants for several reasons:
Showcases Company Values
The benefits you provide to employees can be a great way to express your business values. Offering more scheduling flexibility or generous paid time off can show outsiders that you are trying to help employees maintain a healthier work-life balance.
Appeals to a Larger Group
Not all forms of benefits appeal to the same individuals. However, a more comprehensive benefits offering helps your business appeal to a larger group of individuals. This can be highly effective when trying to explore a wider talent pool and receiving a broader range of resume types to review.
Provides More Security
While financial security is important to most potential job applicants, many are also interested in other forms of security for themselves and their families. Benefits like health insurance, disability coverage, and retirement savings plans help to achieve this for many individuals and are another way to attract more applicants.
Successfully Lowering Employee Turnover
Gaining access to new talent for your business, while important, is still only one part of the process. You also need to make sure you set these individuals up for success and reduce the likelihood of them leaving the company prematurely.
Benefits packages are the perfect way to lower a business’s employee turnover by effectively:
Rewarding Employee Contributions
Benefit options like performance bonuses or stock options demonstrate that the business looks for opportunities to reward their employees outside of their standard compensation. This is important as it shows employees that the business is willing to recognize and support individuals who go over and above in their roles.
Building a Sense of Community
Implementing certain offerings into your benefits packages – such as employee wellness or assistance programs – helps make employees feel like they’re part of a community rather than just another number in the business. These types of programs are a great way for businesses to show their interest in more than just an employee’s work performance and concern for their mental well-being.
Demonstrating an Investment in Employees
There are many different ways a business can show that they’re willing to invest in the success of their employees through the benefits they offer. For example, offering free access to professional development courses or putting into place certain mentorship programs can help employees feel more supported to pursue long-term career goals while applying newly learned skills to help them advance with the business.
Improving Employee Morale and Productivity
While it can be difficult sometimes to calculate ROI on benefits offerings, they can have a significant impact on the overall morale and productivity of employees. This in itself can translate to significant gains for organizations as employees begin maximizing their output, increasing their attentiveness, reducing errors, and being able and willing to take on more tasks.
One of the reasons for this is how benefits can contribute to more positive working environments. If employees are less worried about potential healthcare expenses or are able to better balance their work and personal life with more flexible scheduling, it will quickly show in how they perform day-to-day.
Another thing to be concerned about as an organization is the possibility for toxic attitudes to develop within various departments. Many times, negative attitudes can form if one or more employees feel like they’re underappreciated or not fairly compensated. While a benefits package on its own may not completely eliminate this problem, it can have a major positive impact on company culture and lower the chances of negative attitudes in employees.
A large part of maximizing employee productivity is helping them feel a deeper sense of ownership over their work. Certain benefits offerings can help with this. For example, offering retirement savings plans or stock options helps employees recognize more of a purpose for their work. Knowing that the work they do will help them in the future adds a deeper sense of connection with the company and can keep them more motivated to put their best foot forward.
Increasing Engagement and Reducing Absenteeism
Regardless of how much you invest in your business, you won’t be able to see returns if your employees regularly fail to show up to work. While employee absences happen for various reasons, illnesses or work-related stress are common ones. Although you won’t be able to prevent this from happening altogether, you can help reduce the need for longer-term absences by helping employees be more financially capable of receiving regular preventative care.
The costs of healthcare vary from one region to the next. However, for many people, it can be a major barrier to living a healthier lifestyle and avoiding longer-term illnesses. While some businesses may be subject to minimum levels of coverage, this doesn’t mean organizations can’t expand on them.
Benefits packages can be customized to facilitate a wide range of primary and alternative healthcare options. This allows employees and their families to receive regular health checkups and faster recovery times when they’re ill, which can help significantly reduce workplace absences.
When employees are absent from work for longer periods, workloads are often spread out to other team members. While this might be sustainable in the short term, it can quickly overwhelm individuals. This additional stress of working at full capacity can be incredibly taxing on all employees, which in turn can lead to even more absences. Having a comprehensive benefits package in place can help reduce this likelihood by reducing work-related absences and helping businesses better manage their workloads.
Building a Positive Company Culture and Employer Branding
Having a positive company culture can bring a business a number of long-term benefits. Not only is it great for keeping employees more engaged and productive, but it can also improve the perception of the brand outside the organization as well.
Benefits offerings can be very valuable to employees and their families. This often results in happier employees sharing their feelings with friends, family, or previous work colleagues. They may also be more inclined to share positive organization reviews across various online platforms.
This increase in social signals helps a brand to gain more credibility and trust online. This then makes it easier to attract more talent and can have a real positive impact on how customers view the organization. Proving how healthy the company culture is can directly result in better customer engagement and increased brand loyalty in the long term. This can lead to more recurring revenue sources and increased sustainability for the business.
Make Smart Investments for Your Employees and Your Business
There is no question that employee benefits can be a significant investment for your organization. However, when formatted correctly, benefits packages can bring significant returns to businesses through increased employee engagement, better productivity, and improved customer relationships.
