Since the 2000s, employee engagement has become one of the most talked-about topics in workplaces all over the world. In fact, today, it’s impossible to talk about HR, recruitment, culture and workplace satisfaction without talking about employee engagement.
Why is employee engagement so critical? It’s simple - employees who are engaged in their work are more productive and more motivated. As a result, organizations with highly engaged employees enjoy increased profitability while employees are more likely to remain at their current employer.
Leading organizations understand how employee benefits contribute to engagement and satisfaction. But how do you know what benefits employees actually want?
It’s Not Only About Money
Firstly, feeling valued and appreciated, using our strengths, finding meaning in what we do, being aligned with the company values and feeling part of the culture all play a crucial role in employee engagement and work satisfaction.
But let’s be honest, compensation is also very important. What employee doesn’t want to be compensated well for his or her efforts? However, when talking about compensation, it’s important that salary is not the only thing that’s discussed. In fact, employees who only look at their salary as opposed to their total reward, including employee benefits, workplace benefits, pension and insurances, undervalue their total reward and are likely to be missing out on a significant part of their package.
It Needs to Be Personal
In every workplace across the globe, we can see multiple generations working side by side. Each generation has its own needs and preferences depending on life stage and other factors. This is why a company’s employee benefits offering needs to be personalized.
How can employers personalize their employee benefits offering? One way is through a flexible benefits plan. Created by the employer, a flexible benefits plan allows employees to select from a variety of pretax offerings to create a customized benefits package that matches their needs.
Flexibility and customization can be in many shapes or forms. For example, in addition to regular vacation days, Adecco offers its employees in the Netherlands an additional 13 days a year, which employees — through their benefits platform — can choose to have paid out in full, paid out in part, or take as vacation days. The platform then automatically calculates what the pay-out amount will be based on the employee’s selection.
To read more about how Benify’s market-leading global benefits and total reward platform helped Adecco, download the client case.
Offer Benefits That Support the Whole Person
While being engaged in our work is important, we also need time for the other things outside of work that energize us and make us whole.
In addition to offering employee benefits that support work-life balance, allowing employees to adjust their schedules, work from home when needed is another way that employers can support the whole person. Flexitime is generally regarded as one of the most universally appreciated benefits.
Find Out by Removing Guesswork
Using Benify’s Global Dashboard, HR professionals can access a wealth of data and gain powerful insights into their employees.
For example, through the dashboard, administrators can get an overview of which benefits employees are enrolled in, which benefits are being used, and which benefits are most popular. With such data, employers can better understand their employees' needs and wants.
Awareness Leads to Appreciation
As attractive as a company’s employee benefits offering may be, unfortunately, they aren’t worth much if employees are unaware of them.
Create greater benefits awareness by using Benify’s integrated communication engine, which allows companies to reach their employees regardless of where they are and via their preferred communication method.
Notifying and reminding employees of their benefits through emails, push notifications and platform messages helps increase benefits awareness, appreciation and participation.
L’Oréal is one such company that turned to Benify to help them create greater employee awareness around benefits and total reward. Martina Heim, Total Rewards Director at L’Oréal, explains: “We wanted to find a way to better visualize and manage our various company rewards programs. We wanted to empower our employees and ensure that each employee had a sound understanding of their available benefits and rewards in a way that was easy to access and engage with. We were able to achieve this through the special technology Benify developed, including their app.”
Want to discover what benefits your employees really want? Download our Employee Benefits Report, where we surveyed over 19,000 employees and HR professionals about their benefits.
