What Your Employees Really Think About Your Benefits Package

Offering a fair and competitive benefits package goes a long way in helping you retain your top talent and keep employee turnover to a minimum. In fact, over 70 percent of employees claim that as their benefits increase, so does their job satisfaction. And when people are satisfied with their jobs, they are much less likely to go searching for a different place to work.

Aim to make benefits a top priority, but avoid spending money on all the random perks you can find. Instead, use this guide to see just what employees are looking for, so you can properly focus your efforts.

Why are Benefits Important?

As people look for a job, and decide to stay at their current place of employment, benefits are a top consideration. Three out of five job candidates report that they will weigh benefits and perks above nearly all else, barring wages, in deciding to accept a job offer.

Once you have acquired the top talent, keeping them onboard goes back to employee benefits as well, not wages, surprisingly. About 80 percent of employees would rather have additional benefits sent their way than a pay raise, proving that benefits are your key to keeping your talent around.

What Benefits are Your Employees Looking For?

With your newfound understanding of the importance of offering great benefits, it is time to assess your offerings to see where you stand. Check out the following benefits to see just what employees are looking for and where to focus your efforts.

Healthcare

Each and every year, American employees are saddled with over $10,000 in out of pocket medical expenses. This is mostly due to having poor quality healthcare benefits with high deductibles and high out of pocket maximum limits. People often have to pay up to 20 percent on every bill until reaching the yearly maximum, which can total in the thousands.

So, it is no wonder people put healthcare at the top of their list of important things to look for in their next job. You can ensure your health plan actually supports your employees’ wellbeing by partnering with a professional employer organization (PEO). Using the PEO’s extensive network, they can provide your company with affordable insurance plans that will not leave your employees scrambling to cover thousands of dollars in medical bills every year.

Flexible Hours

To better manage their busy lives, people are looking for flexible schedules, more often than not, these days. Right after healthcare, flexible hours are a top consideration for job seekers, as they look for more control over the flow of their days and weeks. As long as you have outsourced HR to your trusted PEO, offering flexible hours should not cost your company much time or money. Your PEO will work with all employees to help them find their ideal schedule and other arrangements that help them complete their job duties to your satisfaction.

Retirement Savings

Your employees are always looking toward the future and building a strong foundation for retirement — and you should, too. With over 90 percent of employers offering a traditional 401(k) plan, or equivalent, your company must do the same to keep up. You can even go one better by partnering with a PEO to improve your ability to help employees plan for retirement. Your outsourced human resources team will ensure your company has the ideal matching program for all your employees’ retirement funds.

Perks

Perks speak loudly of your organization’s commitment to employee wellness and happiness. As a small business owner, an onsite gym might be out of your budget range, but there are many other exceptional perks to consider, such as:

• Free snacks and drinks
• Community yoga classes
• Meditation groups
• Gym memberships

You can also promote the wellbeing of your workforce by reimbursing purchases that benefit their health and livelihood. You can pay them back for purchasing athletic gear, smoking cessation tools, and other healthy living items.

More than likely, your competitors already have all these employee benefits, and more, in place at this moment. To ensure your competitors cannot entice your top talent to join their teams, you need to have the right benefits package in place as well. You can easily do so by partnering with a PEO (professional employer organization), like Questco.