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Having a good employee benefits package in place is incredibly important for employers. Keeping employees happy has a direct effect on the business; employees who feel happier and satisfied are far more likely to work harder than employees who don’t feel satisfied or valued by their employers. However, there are a lot of potential employee benefits that you could offer to your staff, so how do you choose?

Why Do Benefits Matter to Employees?

Before you can decide which benefits you should offer your staff, you should first understand why they are so important. Having a good employee package in place improves workplace morale; it also reduces the levels of stress and absence within the workforce and boosts productivity. In addition, the levels of staff turnover are often lower, and it makes recruiting more talent easier. All of which are beneficial for your company as well as your employees.

What Employee Benefits are the Most Valued?

In terms of the most desirable benefits you can offer, there are several that employees tend to seek out. Firstly, a workplace pension, which is a legal requirement in the UK, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things to consider. When implementing a workplace pension, you first need to work out what contribution you offer. Do you offer the bare minimum? What is the industry standard? Do you go with that, or do you go above this? Lastly, you should consider who provides your pension, do they offer the best terms, or is it worth shopping around to ensure that you and your employees are getting the best deal?

Next, there is private health insurance. This has become a highly sought-after employee benefit in the last few years as the NHS was crippled by the pandemic and waiting lists grew exponentially. If you have an employee who has to wait weeks for a diagnosis and treatment, then this would have a huge impact on their lives and often your business too. By offering private health insurance as a benefit, your employees gain access to private health care, which is often a lot quicker and easier to access. They can skip the queue and receive their treatment more quickly, which also means that they can get back to work sooner too. As with a pension, it is also important to shop around when looking for a health insurance provider; for example, you could use switchhealth.com to help you to compare the best deals for your desired coverage and your business size.

Depending on the nature of your business or industry, you might also want to think about offering a company car or car allowance to your staff. Many organisations offer this as a benefit because the job calls for it like a sales rep or to recognise the status of the job like directors. The vehicles are taxed according to their emissions. As such, some companies prefer to offer an allowance to help their staff to purchase their vehicles or compensation via a mileage allowance rather than supply them with a vehicle. Some companies prefer to offer a greener alternative, and so they instead implement a cycle to work scheme. You lend your employees money to buy a bicycle, and they pay you back incrementally out of their wages. This is often a popular form of benefit that a lot of employees seek out.

Time off is also incredibly important to employees. The time off can come in many forms. Employers are required by law to offer certain amounts of paid holidays; it will depend on the hours that they work. There are other forms of paid leave to which your employees are legally entitled, and you should do your research to ensure that you are compliant with this.  However, in addition to this, a lot of employers also offer bank holidays off as a standard, in part because the businesses themselves are also closed. Some employers also have a compassionate leave policy which represents their moral and ethical stance as far as a lot of employees are concerned. Some employers also offer flexible working hours as a perk; these are often valued by employees because it means that they can better tailor their working hours to their existing commitments.

In Conclusion

Staff hugely value the perks and benefits that they are provided with, whether big or small. Employee benefits have become a key recruitment tool as well as playing a big part in staff retention. Take stock of what you are offering your employees; if you are struggling with your staff turnover, that could be part of the problem. When employees are provided with better benefits, they feel more valued, do the benefits you have in place communicate this to your staff?