Innovative employee benefit packages can sometimes be pushed into the ‘low priority’ task pile. But successful managers and HR departments will always be aware that a strong incentives package is a key part of keeping employees happy and motivated in their jobs.
Setting up employee benefit packages is a fairly straight-forward process, but we can guide you through it. Read on to see how it’s done and to make sure you’re getting the best for your team.
What are employee benefits packages?
Employee benefits packages usually fall into one of two categories: monetary and non-monetary. It goes without saying that monetary packages involve some sort of financial benefit. These can be annual bonuses like a Christmas bonus, and can also include performance related incentives, such as giving all members of a certain project a financial bonus if all targets are exceeded.
Monetary benefits packages can also be used to help employees through difficult times. For example, at the moment some organisations are offering singular payments to assist their staff during the cost-of-living crisis.
Non-monetary packages are benefits that might save your team money, but aren’t a direct cash injection to their bank account. Company cars, health insurance, cycle to work schemes – there is an almost endless list of non-monetary employee incentive programmes you can offer your staff. The important thing is to select an employee benefits package that will really benefit your team (we’ll explain how to do this further down the page).
Why are employee benefit packages important?
Employee benefit packages are one of the best ways to set your organisation apart from your competitors and can have a huge impact on your workforce.
Crucially, strong employee incentive programmes will help attract top talent to your organisation. If you’re trying to bring in a new hire, but another company is offering them a similar salary and job title, touting your employee benefit packages could be what sways them to accepting your offer.
It’s not just about attracting new team members, but also retaining existing ones as well. Employees looking elsewhere will be hesitant to leave a role that comes with excellent benefits. Your employees may be feeling the pinch due to the cost-of-living crisis, so a package that helps them saves money, whether it’s essentials like household groceries or a chance to treat themselves with a restaurant voucher, will provide them with a tangible benefit. This is key when it comes to building loyalty within your workforce.
So, how do you go about setting up an employee benefits package? Read on for our comprehensive ‘how to’ list.
Setting up an employee benefits package, step by step
Set a budget
The first thing you need to do is decide how much money you can spend on your employee benefits package. There are a few things to consider here, including the size of your organisation, how well your staff are paid, and how demanding average workloads are.
On top of this, you’ll want to think about the intended impact of your employee incentive programme. Is your organisation going through a period of rapid growth and you’re looking to attract top talent to keep on top of things? Are you trying to build loyalty to combat competitors trying to convince key team members to jump ship? These issues should be considered when deciding on your benefits budget.
Decide which benefits you want to include in your package
As we mentioned above, there are a multitude of different monetary and non-monetary benefits you could include in your incentives package. Talk to your employees to figure out what they need and what would be most effective at keeping them satisfied in their job while helping them in their everyday lives. You could even create a simple poll to get more reliable data to inform your decision.
We’ve laid out some more of the most popular and sought-after employee benefits below.
- Health insurance
- Life assurance
- Gym membership/discount
- Eyecare vouchers
- Car benefits
- Cycle to Work scheme
- Extended maternity/paternity leave
- Childcare vouchers
- Store/brand discounts
- Electronics/gadgets discounts
- Restaurant vouchers
- Company away days and holidays
- Options to buy/sell extra annual leave
- Salary sacrifice schemes
Leverage an employee experience platform
You can have the best employee benefits package around, but it won’t do much good if your employees aren’t engaging with it! A simple way to avoid this pitfall is to make use of a reliable employee engagement platform.
This is why we created Reward Gateway’s Total Reward Statement. The platform presents each employee with their available benefits package, but also lets employees see their own tailored benefits picture while helping them understand the full value of their reward package.
By making the process simpler and easier to understand using employee benefits technology, our platform will have a huge impact on your employees’ engagement with the benefits package you choose.
Launch and roll out!
So, you’ve figured out your employee benefits package budget, decided on the benefits you’re going to include, and got your engagement platform in place. Now it’s time to get everything moving!
The first thing you need to do is notify your employees of the new incentives package they’re now entitled to. Remember, your package won’t have its intended effect if none of your team are aware of it, so don’t rely on a simple email that might be buried by a dozen others before lunch time.
Shout and rave about it. Turn it into an official announcement, maybe even an office-wide event? Just make sure people know about the awesome benefits package they now have access to!
Get started building the perfect employee benefits package for your people and organisation by speaking with one of our team today.
