Offering employee benefits is a signal that shows their time, contribution, experience, and them as a person is valued by your business.
Many employers are now rolling out a ‘cafeteria style’ approach to benefits – offering a range of perks, from lifestyle and wellness perks to fundamental benefits, like medical and dental insurance. Taking this approach allows employees to select benefits that best meet their needs. As we’ve spent significant amounts of the last two years working from home, employees have had ample time to review their situations, and consider what they really want.
It’s no secret that in a candidate short market, retaining employees is essential. A tried and tested way to do so is to listen to your employees, and offer benefits considered genuinely useful. Bear in mind that usefulness doesn’t look the same for everyone – personalisation became key in 2021, a trend likely to continue through 2022 and beyond. If you’re looking to enhance your employee benefits offering, but aren’t sure of what’s out there, then read on. Here’s a list of benefits we’ve seen our clients and other businesses offering their employees in the last 12 months. At advo, we practice what we preach, and we offer many of the employee benefits below to our own employees!
- Employee Assistance Programs
- Grandparental leave
- Update leave policies: adoption leave, Bereavement leave, Miscarriage leave, Fertility leave, Menopause leave
- Review your maternity policy
- Hybrid work
- Flexitime
- Early finish on Fridays
- Genuinely consider flexibility requests, such as reduced working hours over the summer in order to accommodate childcare arrangements
- Private health insurance
- Increase paid sick leave allowance
- Income protection
- Cash plans
- Online GP services
- Online counselling services
- Discounted gym memberships
- Discounted virtual fitness classes
- Walk and talk meetings
- Free access to sleep or meditation apps
- Mental health first aiders at work
- Base salary increases
- Performance related bonus
- Free financial advisor
- Retail and entertainment discounts
- Salary sacrifice purchase schemes for bicycles.
If you’d like to add any of the above to your employee benefits offering, or review your current offering, talk to advo today. It’s also worth remembering that any change to employee benefits or policies will need to be backed up in your employee handbook, which our team of HR experts can help with. Talk to us today about employee benefits, or HR support.