Surveys are a great way to gain a comprehensive understanding of the way your employees view the benefits they are being offered. By learning more about their priorities and their perception of the company, you can improve employee retention and satisfaction with ease.
Creating Effective Benefit Surveys
A benefits package plays a crucial role in a company’s contract, serving to attract high-quality candidates and retaining top talent the company has already recruited. As more and more businesses offer novel perks to set themselves apart from the competition, no business can afford to overlook the importance of ensuring the benefits they offer align with their employees’ needs.
Here are some questions you can ask in these surveys to help make better decisions and ensure you are investing in the right approaches.
1. Which three benefits are the most important to you?
This is a direct question that gets to the heart of what employees are seeking. You may wish to list the benefits you currently offer as well as those your organization is considering offering and asking employees to check off their top three. Alternatively, you might consider posing this as an open-ended question to give employees more freedom in their responses.
2. Which three benefits do you find the least useful?
Once again, this is a question that can be structured with a list of benefits the organization currently offers as well as those you may be considering, or it can be posed as an open-ended question.
3. How would you rate your satisfaction with your health insurance plan?
Provide employees with a scale, such as ratings from 1 to 10, to assess their satisfaction with the current health insurance plan. This question can be more effective when followed by a question about what they would like to see changed.
4. In your opinion, are your health insurance costs too high?
When inquiring about employees’ opinions of their health insurance costs, it is important to break down the various components and ask how they feel about the cost sharing amounts that are deducted from their paychecks as well as their coinsurance, copayments and deductibles.
5. Do our benefits packages meet your needs?
When asking employees if the benefits packages offered by your organization meet the needs of their families, it is important to ask them to specify what they believe is missing if they are not satisfied.
6. How important is the ability to work remotely to you?
Many modern employees are looking for the opportunity to work remotely or with flexible schedules that accommodate their family’s needs and other preferences.
To find out whether this could form an attractive part of your benefits plan, consider asking employees how important the ability to work remotely is to them, as well as any interest they may have in hybrid work arrangements that allow them to work partially on-site and partially on a remote basis.
7. How would you rate your retirement plan?
Ask employees to rate the retirement plan being offered by your organization on a numbered scale, and then prompt them to identify any changes they would like to see implemented.
For example, you may ask them if they prefer pretax or after-tax contributions to their 401K or whether they believe the company match is too low. Be sure to provide ample space for them to elaborate on their feelings about this important issue.
8. How satisfied are you with your current allotment of paid time off?
Paid time off is another important part of the employee benefits package when it comes to recruitment and retention, making it essential to gauge your employees’ satisfaction with their current paid time off. In addition to finding out if they are happy with the amount of PTO they are given, ask them to share their opinions about the company’s PTO usage and payout policies.
9. Which perks do you feel can help promote a more positive work culture?
It is best to leave this question open-ended, but you may wish to supply some examples, such as free office snacks, employee recognition and other perks being offered by your competitors to illustrate the types of answers you are seeking.
10. How satisfied are you with the organization’s benefits enrollment procedures?
Open enrollment can be a complicated and stressful process, so take the opportunity to gauge your employees’ satisfaction with the procedures and tools used in your open enrollment period. You can also ask them about any shortcomings in the process and any changes they would like to see implemented in the next open enrollment season.
Contact the Employee Benefits Specialists
Employee retention is becoming increasingly important as businesses work to reduce lost productivity as well as the time and expense involved in addressing employee turnover.
An employee benefits survey is an excellent way to ensure your benefits offering is achieving the desired results. For help developing an effective employee benefits survey, contact the experienced consultants at Business Benefits Group (BBG) today.