Employee Benefits: Balancing Cost and Employee Satisfaction
An impressive benefits package is one way to woo top talent, but employers must carefully weigh benefit costs with the company's bottom line.
Spring 2011
"The first thing to do is find out what your employees really want," says Julie Stich, senior information and research specialist at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. "It doesn't do you any good to spend money implementing a benefits plan that people don't care about."
Survey Employee Preferences
While informal discussions with employees can highlight desired benefits, a structured approach is more reliable. "Conducting a survey of your employees is important," Stich says. "Tie in the results with what other employers are offering in your region. You want to make sure your benefits are competitive."
Your survey should assess the willingness of employees to contribute a portion of their pay to desired benefits. Enthusiasm for life insurance may cool when employees learn that part or all of the premiums would be deducted from their paychecks.
You can get a rough idea of what your employees will say in your survey from the results of research by the Principal Financial Group. In its Principal Financial Well Being Index, the group offers insight into which benefits employees want.
It's no surprise that health insurance is the most coveted benefit. Virtually nine out of 10 employed people cite it as extremely important. Employees continue to contribute more to the cost of their health insurance, a trend that has continued over the past decade. Some 36 percent of respondents reported increases in co-pays and 32 percent in deductibles over the past year, Financial says. Further, about one of 10 employees has experienced a reduction in medical benefit coverage options.
The second most coveted benefit is a defined contribution retirement plan, ranked as important by seven of 10 employees. Dental insurance virtually tied for second place.
Enthusiasm tends to trail off significantly for other benefits. Roughly half of respondents rated disability, vision, and life insurance as important. As for profit sharing plans and stock options, only about one of three employees rated them as important. Other benefits for employers to consider are paid holidays, vacation and paid-time-off pools, paid and unpaid leaves of absence, and financial and retirement planning.
Stay Realistic
While surveying employees is a good starting point, avoid raising unrealistic expectations by asking about benefits that are too costly. "The biggest mistake is to fail to set some limit on benefit costs per full-time-equivalent employee, and then ask employees what they want," says Ian Jacobsen, a management consultant in Morgan Hill, California. "Asking about specific benefits raises hopes they will be offered and that the employer will pay for all or part of them. When expectations are shattered, morale suffers."
Remember that the employer's costs go beyond the basic contributions to premiums. Maintaining programs can be expensive when employees pepper your support staff with questions and request assistance. Do you have the personnel required to maintain the records required by a potential benefit?
"Employers need to not only assess their budget, but also the legal, regulatory, and tax impact of proposed benefits and the company's ability to effectively manage their programs," says Lenny Sanicola, benefits practice leader at human resources research organization WorldatWork.
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