Regardless of your field or industry, your business will always face competition for the best talent on the market. Learning how to keep the best people happy and part of your company over the long term can seem like a challenging proposition. However, if staff are given fair benefits, treated well, and given opportunities to grow, it is possible to build a loyal group of employees that will want to stick with your company through the long-haul. Our benefits consultants have seen it time and time again—a competitive benefits package is the key to getting talent to stick around. The right benefits package, particularly when crafted to complement a few of our additional ideas below, can provide powerful motivation for an employee to stay with your company for years to come.
1. Flexible Spending Accounts
One of the problems with many conventional benefits packages is the rigidity and one-size-fits-all approach that they enforce on employees. Healthcare is a convoluted and complicated affair, and many people find themselves in roped into a benefits package that doesn’t cover the specifics of their healthcare needs. This is where a Flexible Spending Account, or FSA, can come in handy.
Essentially, an FSA is used to help cover certain types of health costs using a single flexible account that can make reimbursing diverse costs much more straightforward. This makes things simpler for employees, while also providing more comprehensive coverage for costs that might fall through the cracks of typical benefits packages.
2. Health and Wellness
When employees are disgruntled, depressed, or otherwise unhappy, they are much more likely to leave their position with your company and begin seeking a new situation elsewhere. This is also a possibility if they feel unsatisfied with the work or growth prospects in their current position. Employee wellness initiatives have been proven to be one of the best remedies to this raft of problems. Exercise combats depression and improves mood, and employees who are in a better mental state while at the office are more likely to enjoy their work. This is where a health and wellness plan comes into play.
A health and wellness plan is a special account set aside to cover the costs of gym memberships and other related activities. This demonstrates to employees that an employer cares about their health and happiness, and not simply about extracting the last ounce of sweat from them in the workplace.
3. Health Insurance
Health insurance is one of the largest regular expenses faced by Americans, with the average individual paying $321 per month for coverage. When an employer finds a way to provide insurance to their staff, they are essentially putting that money back in the worker’s pocket. With group benefits and the discounts available, this is a way for a company to put more money back in their workers pockets at a significant discount compared to just paying them a higher salary. This is an area where a benefits consultant can be invaluable. They can provide insight on how best to structure an insurance plan to provide ample coverage for staff while also keeping the costs low for the employer.
4. In-Office Perks
These often seem like such small items that many employers overlook them. When that happens though, they’re missing out on a great chance to make employees feel valued. Providing small, in-office perks really shows a team that their bosses take their comfort and happiness in the workplace seriously. Any combination of these ideas (or any others in a similar vein) can work wonders at keeping employees satisfied:
- Free coffee in the breakroom for employees
- Sandwich or bagel delivery once a week
- Dry cleaning services
- Free carwashes for employees in the company parking lot
- Discounts or freebies at local businesses
5. Flexible Working Conditions
Much has been said the last few years about work from home options coming and going at major companies around the world. While many companies would find it impractical to offer staff the ability go to 100% remote in their work, it pays to think about ways that you can make working conditions more flexible for the team.
For example, consider granting trusted employees:
- The ability to work one day per week from home
- Flexible starting and end times ie: if someone wants to work 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM instead of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, that would be allowed. This is often very useful for people with families who need to work around a spouse’s and children’s schedules.
- Potential four day workweeks. This has been shown to be very effective in different workplaces. By allowing people the option of working ten hour days and then taking Fridays off, it provides them with a longer, more restorative weekend.
6. Time Off
Time off allows your employees to recharge, rest, refocus, and handle some of the little things in life that may leave them otherwise distracted during the workday. How you structure your time off policies is such an important category for retaining talent that it’s worth breaking it down into its subcomponents.
Vacation Days: People who take vacations are generally healthier, and more productive at work. Offering staff the bare minimum of vacation days is legally required but if possible, go above and beyond by offering them additional paid annual leave.
Sick Days: Sick day policies are often too strict and inflexible to be really practical. When staff feel like their health is taken seriously, they are more comfortable staying at a workplace. Always remember that sick days can and should be used when mental health issues need to be attended to as well. A recent post that went viral shows the critical ways that mental health can and should be viewed in the workplace.
Bonus Days: This is a useful tool for incentivizing employees and for increasing productivity at the same time. You can structure “bonus” time off which can be earned in a variety of ways. For instance, if a sales target is met or if a development process is finished ahead of schedule, an employer might offer the following Friday (or even Friday afternoon) off to the team.
How to Make it All Happen – Work with a Benefits Consultant
This all might sound very effective, but putting it into practice can be somewhat challenging. This is where an experienced benefits consultant can come in very handy. The experts here at BBG can effectively structure a competitive benefits packages for your company, as well as illustrating illustrate how, when and why changes should be made to an existing benefits program in order to retain top-level talent in your company for years to come..