As an employer, offering employee benefits are well known for increasing the appeal of your company to potential employees. However many employers, whether they are established organizations or start-ups, fail to recognize the importance of a balanced and flexible employee benefit plan.
Too often employers end up with an offering that their staff fails to appreciate or even understand. What employers need to realise is that this process is deeper than merely grouping products like retirement, medical aid and disability together. It needs to achieve a careful balance between product and profitability as well as the level of investment at each employee tier.
Depending on your industry, employee benefits can include anything from products such as medical insurance, life cover, retirement benefits, and disability cover to housing, education, daycare, etc.
There are a number of core advantages to offering these types of employee benefits to your staff, namely:
Many companies group products together for their employee benefits in an attempt to stay competitive but are unaware of the other factors at play in this process.
A balanced approach to Employee Benefits Plans should consider two areas:
One of the main disadvantages of offering poorly structured employee benefits can be the associated cost…and this affects your profitability. It is therefore pertinent to understand the needs of your employees so that you can structure the product mix you offer to achieve a balance that satisfies employee needs while maintaining profitability.
It is also important to maintain a flexible benefit plan that can adjust to each employee level. A lower-level employee will value very different benefits to a high-level employee, therefore a one-size-fits-all plan should be ruled out.
Lastly the level of investment at each employee tier must be considered as this is where Employee Benefit Programs move beyond merely product-based offerings and can include areas such as training. For example, at lower tiers, teaching employees how to manage debt can reduce the associated stresses that lead to root problems like absenteeism and poor productivity.
By creating an Employee Benefits Plan that encompasses these areas, it has been shown to provide employers a significant return on investment through increased profitability and savings realised by reducing absenteeism, retraining and the cost of insured benefits.
GFB takes on selected clients and can act as an Employee benefit consultant, advising you on structuring your employee benefit plan to include the correct mix of products to help achieve employee well being. Speak to Ivan today on 021 434 8065.