Strike the right balance with your benefits
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Many organisations often want to launch the latest benefits that enter the market. They’re also often concerned with what benefits are popular in their industry – a case of keeping up with the Joneses. Occasionally organisations are focused on wanting to know which benefits would be most relevant for their blue collar workers vs. their white collar workers. All this is important, so they can get one step closer to providing the 'perfect' benefits offering which will meet employees’ needs and wants.
The real question is - what is the ‘perfect’ benefits offering? Simply adding the latest fad or trend won’t create the perfect offering. If anything, by doing solely that, organisations have increased employee expectations - and at times even created a sense of entitlement, without necessarily creating a benefits package their employees want.
There is nothing wrong with organisations offering the latest benefits, or aligning with their industry peers. We encourage this behaviour when it aligns with the organisational strategy and culture. However, it’s important to think of the fundamental reason of who they are doing this for, their people.
If organisations want to have the latest benefits for their people, why are so many decisions based on factors such as industry type and organisational attitude? Would you agree that all employees, regardless of the industry or type of business they work for, will all have a wide range of priorities and needs? Some will be focusing on financial life events, others may be focused on career progression, and for some retirement will be within reach. They will all be experiencing different life events. So then, shouldn’t these factors be important when defining what it means to offer employees the most engaging, rewarding and relevant benefits package there is?
What it comes down to is that it's not just about the latest benefits, or the industry hype, it's about striking the right balance and supporting employees in the moments that matter to them the most. Ultimately, it’s about creating the best possible employee experience. If businesses continue to simply add new benefits, without any strategy behind them, eventually it reaches a point where employee satisfaction plateaus. This has the opposite effect of what organisations are trying to achieve. But if you continuously invest in building new employee experiences their satisfaction will continue to go up.
Here are some of our DOs and DON’Ts that will help you enhance your employee experience through your benefits offering:
- Do create a clear strategy which is well aligned with your overall business strategy and objectives (the WHY).
- Do develop a benefits programme that goes beyond the traditional approach and focuses on your employees (the WHO).
- Do develop a benefits programme that goes beyond employee engagement and focuses entirely on employee experience (the WHAT).
- Do continuously invest in developing your employee experience, to ensure your employees feel happy, healthy and motivated to work for you.
- Don't just focus on the latest benefit trends, focus on meaningful benefits instead. Your employees will remember how you provided benefits that supported them through illness, having a baby or buying a house. Make sure you have relevant benefits and policies in place.
- Don't categorise your workforce or the industry you operate in as a way to shape your benefits offering. Instead, ask your employees what benefits they would find important and what areas of wellbeing they need the most support with.
- Don’t just throw money at cash incentives, as these will only deliver short term results - think about your longer-term objectives.
- Don’t forget to align your organisational culture to the benefits you offer. This can help you to make sure that your benefits scheme is sustainable and meaningful to employees.