The Importance of Employee Benefits
Employee benefits are extremely important to attracting and retaining your top talent. Why? Providing all-encompassing employee benefits give employees a sense of security. Your employees shouldn’t have to worry about things a company should be taking care of. Being able to provide medical care for their family may be a top stressor for one employee whereas paying off student loans may be a main life stressor for another. The importance of employee benefits is in providing for the individual human beings that make up your workforce. Through this, you will benefit from the positive results that it creates. How? Here are some ways.
Retention
No surprise here. Offering great benefits is a huge factor in retaining top talent and improving your company culture. According to Glassdoor’s Employment Confidence Survey, nearly four in five (79%) of employees would prefer new or additional benefits to a pay increase. As “job hopping” continues to increase in popularity, it is becoming harder for employers to keep above-par employees with standard or sub-par benefits.
To increase the number of employees that are staying with your company, increase your understanding of the benefits your employees want. Then, provide for those needs.
Increases Creativity & Productivity
If you’re not unleashing the full creativity and productivity of your team, your business is missing out on one of its greatest assets. Smart companies know that employee creativity is the source of their greatest accomplishments.
“A company’s most important asset isn’t raw materials, transportation systems, or political influence.” Richard Florida, professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto’s Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, says. “It’s creative capital—simply put, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services.”
Wondering how? You can learn how to unleash creativity and productivity in the workplace here: “Aligning Culture, Employees & Benefits: 5 Bottom Line Hacks to Powering Creativity In People.”
Promotes Healthier Individuals
You can’t expect a large and innovative return from human beings that are not healthy, mentally, emotionally and physically. If you want to maximize the creativity of your people, you have to meet the their basic needs. Although these basic needs may seem counterintuitive, they are the key to unleashing the full creative potential of your workforce. In the end, releasing the full potential of employees comes back to providing for their basic needs. How? Through a great benefits plan that provides for daily health as well as wellness.
“Intel is committed to developing a culture in which employees and their families are healthy, productive and engaged in living wellness-oriented lifestyles every day,” Intel stated in a release.
“We are recognized as an employer who provides comprehensive health and wellness benefits for its employees and we believe in providing innovative, competitive, health benefits and wellness programs, tools, resources, and solutions for all employees and their families to manage and improve their health.”
Establishes an Employee-Centered Culture
Overall, the importance of offering great benefits is that it creates a certain culture; either a culture employees are excited to be a part of, or one that they are actively looking to leave. Offering all-encompassing benefits to employees shows an investment in them as a human being outside of the result they provide. As a result, this creates a culture of positive, productive employees that are striving to provide their best.
“Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee – are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled,” Anne M. Mulcahy, from CEO of Xerox, says. “Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.”
You must provide all-encompassing benefits to meet employees’ biological needs and life values. How do you provide great benefits to your employees? Share your ideas with us, and we’ll also include them in our post.