How to Attract Employees With Benefits That Actually Work

Wondering if benefits really matter to employees?

A recent survey of almost 10,000 employees in the US reported that about one in three employees were willing to move to a new job for benefits-related reasons, including:

• Pay and bonuses: 56%

• Health benefits: 39%

• Job security: 33%

• Flexible work: 31%

These statistics show that you have the opportunity to attract top talent by providing personalized employee benefits. It also highlights the increased urgency to improve wellness benefits to retain your employees.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to attract employees with benefits that actually work, including how to design an effective benefits package, and common mistakes to avoid.

Why Employee Benefits Are a Top Factor in Talent Acquisition

For a while now, people have stopped viewing employee benefits as just nice perks to have on top of their salaries. An overwhelming majority of potential employees now view benefits as necessities that drive their decisions whether to accept or decline a job offer. 

There are several ways employee benefits influence job candidates: 

• Improves Your Company's Competitiveness: Attractive benefits packages ensure your organization stays top of mind when the best talent is seeking new opportunities.

• Lowers Costs: Comprehensive benefits packages significantly improve employee retention rates. This, in turn, will reduce your organization's operational costs by eliminating the need to advertise open positions, conduct interviews, and provide training.

• Employee Loyalty: It is no secret that unsatisfied employees are constantly looking for better options. Offering benefits tailored to your employees' needs nullifies the need to seek ‘greener pastures,’ which helps increase your year-over-year retention rates.

• Improves Productivity: Employees without benefits like health insurance are constantly thinking about their well-being. By providing these benefits, you will reduce your employees' stress, helping them focus on their work and improving individual and company performance.

• Increased Appeal to Younger Generations: Millennials and Gen Z, who make up the majority of the economically active population, prioritize work-life balance. As such, offering employee benefits such as remote work and paid time off (PTO) that support work-life balance makes your company attractive to most job candidates.

How to Attract Employees With Benefits

Having a benefits program is not enough to attract top talent, because almost every organization offers basic benefits. You have to go above and beyond the normal to provide benefits that actually interest potential employees. 

Here are some suggestions on how to package your benefits program to become more attractive: 

• Highlight Key Benefits in Job Listings: Don’t wait until top talent join your company to learn about your employee benefits. Instead, highlight the benefits in your job postings to grab candidates’ attention quickly and encourage them to submit applications.
• Offer Customizable Benefits: Allow members to curate their employee benefits packages to ensure they match individual preferences. This helps differentiate your company from competitors, making your organization the ‘dream job’ for the top talent.
• Communicate the Benefits Clearly: Provide documentation that outlines the full range of employee benefits on offer. We recommend quantifying the employee benefits in dollars so job candidates can quickly contextualize the expected perks.
• Evaluate Your Competition and Adjust: Knowing what your competitors offer their employees helps you understand industry expectations. This information will help you redesign your benefits packages to keep them attractive to job seekers. 
• Reduce the Waiting Period for Core Benefits: Make the employee benefits accessible from day one to show immediate commitment to supporting new employees’ wellness. This includes discussing employee benefits as part of the onboarding process to help new hires understand and utilize them.

Best Employee Benefits That Drive Attraction

Recruiters can confirm that top talent is gravitating to companies that offer the complete package: health insurance, employee wellness, recognition, work-life balance, and financial planning. Consequently, companies are regularly upscaling their employee benefits to woo job candidates to their camps.

So what benefits actually move the needle when top talent evaluates which company to join? Let’s discuss the must-have benefits below:

1. Remote Work Benefits

Provide employee benefits that help members settle into their remote roles:

• Home Office Improvement Allowances: Offer employees a one-off or annual allowance to improve their home office setups. This could include helping them buy ergonomic chairs that offer lumbar support and standing desks to minimize the time they spend seated. 

• Connectivity Support: Provide employees with monthly stipends to cover remote work tools, including high-speed internet and essential communication and project management software.

• Online Community Building: Implement a remote buddy program that lets remote team members hang out, reducing feelings of loneliness and social isolation.

2. Professional Development Benefits

Offering career advancement opportunities is a huge selling point for most employees. However, you cannot provide such opportunities without providing avenues for your employees to improve their skills. 

Some programs to consider that promote career development include:

• Mentorship Programs: Implement in-house mentorship programs that allow junior employees to learn from more experienced staff. Additionally, organize corporate wellness workshops where employees can interact with thought leaders in their niche.

• Subsidized Professional Development Programs: Another way to support professional development is by offering student loan repayment assistance, enabling employees to pursue graduate degrees or professional certifications.

• Skills Training: Encourage your employees to enroll in training courses by covering their course fees. The training courses can range from online classes to in-person conferences, where participants can also network with other industry members.

3. Compensation Benefits

Provide compensation benefits to improve your team’s financial well-being, especially in the event of accidents:

• Insurance Covers: Provide health insurance that covers medical, dental, vision, and other health expenses. The cover should also cater to dependents, such as spouses, children, and, in some cases, aging parents. Other forms of insurance coverage include life insurance and disability insurance, which provide employees' families with a financial safety net in the event of death or permanent injuries, respectively.

• Retirement Plans: According to a recent study, 45% of employees were stressed about not saving enough for their retirement. This is an opportunity to attract top talent to your business by highlighting your retirement benefits packages in your job postings. At a minimum, mention that you offer 401(k) benefits by matching members’ contributions to their retirement plans.

• Additional Financial Incentives: Provide more avenues for members to earn beyond their salaries to keep them motivated. Some forms of financial incentives include performance-based bonuses, especially for sales professionals, as well as quarterly and annual bonuses tied to the company's economic performance.

4. Work-Life Balance Benefits

Today's employees demand work-life balance so they can spend time with their loved ones and pursue non-work-related goals and hobbies.

You can help your employees achieve this balance by offering:

• Paid Time Off: Offer PTO to allow employees to take a break from their usual schedules, go on vacation, or spend time with friends and family. You should also offer paid parental leave so new parents can take time off work and adjust to their new life without worrying about paying the bills.
• Shortened Workweeks: Offer your employees the option to extend their work hours from 8 to 10 per day, allowing them to complete their 40-hour week in 4 days and enjoy a 3-day weekend. This provides them with more time to rejuvenate, which can help boost productivity.
• Flexible Work Clock-Ins: Let your employees clock in during their most productive hours. This model can be especially beneficial if you run a business that operates in multiple time zones, as it can attract global talent and ensure 24-hour operations.

5. Unique Wellness Benefits

These benefits make employees feel valued and appreciated, as they acknowledge members’ achievements and milestones. Examples include:

• Recognition and Rewards: Find ways to recognize employees’ contributions to the organization and to celebrate employees who reach significant career and life milestones, including birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and job promotions. Download our free ebook to learn how to leverage psychology-backed incentives to make your company more attractive to top talent. 

• Physical Wellness Programs: Implement health and wellness programs that cater to employees’ physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. An example of a physical wellness initiative is paying for gym memberships to encourage employees to work out regularly and stay in shape. 

• Mental Wellness Support: Additionally, provide on-site counseling services, employee assistance programs (EAP), and expert-led wellness webinars on guided meditation to support members’ mental wellness.

How to Design and Communicate Your Benefits Package Effectively

Something powerful happens when you design your benefits package and communicate it effectively: candidates can instantly envision their life at your company, enjoying the perks. In fact, the difference between a benefits package that attracts top talent and one that doesn’t often lies in how you design, present, and deliver.

Discover how to structure your employee benefits package to appeal to top talent: 

1. Needs Assessment: Conduct surveys and focus groups to understand what employees in the current job market truly value. Additionally, analyze industry standards to establish which benefits are deemed must-haves, and which ones you can offer to make your company more appealing to top talent.
2. Establish a Budget: Review your financial statements to determine how much you can spend on the benefits packages. Consider factors that will affect the budget, such as employee demographics (older employees often need better health insurance, which can increase costs), the number of benefits you want to offer, and the number of employees.
3. Design the Benefits: Create a benefits package that meets your employees' needs while staying within budget to avoid financial trouble later. The package should cover the five core pillars of employee wellness: physical, mental, emotional, financial, and social.
4. Have a Communication Strategy: Use multiple channels, such as emails, internal memos, meetings, and posters, to clearly convey the new benefits. Additionally, liaise with the HR department to highlight the employee benefits as part of the offered perks when advertising job vacancies.
5. Roll Out the Benefits: Onboard your employees into the wellness benefits programs. Part of the onboarding should include guiding employees on how to access the benefits, such as how to claim subsidized gym subscriptions.
6. Monitor and Optimize: Establish feedback loops, such as pulse surveys and post-enrollment interviews, to assess employees’ perception of the implemented benefits. Additionally, track utilization metrics, such as enrolment and participation rates, to identify underutilized benefits that should be refined to better appeal to employees.

Common Challenges and How to Avoid Them

Employers constantly face challenges in attracting top talent through benefits packages. 

Below are some of the common challenges and how you can avoid them:

• Increasing Costs: Maintaining a comprehensive benefits package is becoming increasingly expensive, threatening long-term sustainability. Account for all corporate wellness program costs during employee engagement planning, including strategies for financing the packages without hurting your cash flow.

• Shifting Employee Expectations: Employee benefits expectations are constantly evolving to reflect lifestyle changes and life stages. Keeping up with these demands can be highly challenging, especially for smaller businesses with limited budgets. To avoid this, conduct regular needs assessments to identify changes in employee preferences and adapt the benefits package accordingly.

• Poor Communication: Your organization may offer attractive benefits packages; however, if you do not clearly communicate what is available and educate your employees on how to maximize their benefits, the programs will fail. Use clear, straightforward language when discussing benefits packages with your employees. Also, train employees on how to access and utilize the benefits to boost participation rates. 

• Offering Generic Benefits: Using a one-size-fits-all approach when designing employee benefits often locks out job candidates with unique needs. To avoid this, provide benefits that address the key concerns of every demographic in your organization. For example, a student's loan repayment program may be attractive to newly graduated recruits, while comprehensive health care cover might be attractive to parents with young children.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Let’s wind up this guide by answering commonly asked questions about employee benefits that actually work:

How Can Employers Personalize Benefits Packages?

Employers can personalize benefits packages by incorporating employee opinions gathered through surveys during the package design stage. 

They can also offer flexible options that let employees tailor their packages to their needs. 

Do Employee Benefits Differ Across Industries?

Yes. Employee benefits can differ significantly across industries. For instance, manufacturing industries often provide better health insurance benefits than other sectors because of the higher inherent safety risks. 

On the other hand, it is common for tech startups to offer stock options as a financial incentive.

How Do Companies Balance Cost With Employee Satisfaction?

The best way to balance benefits, costs, and employee satisfaction is by prioritizing initiatives that have the highest impact on your team’s well-being. 

For example, employees often rank health insurance benefits as a must-have, so providing them significantly improves your appeal to top talent.

Conclusion

Employee benefits are easily the second-most-essential attraction tool after competitive wages. However, the benefits must be relevant to top talent to be effective.

It comes down to how you design and implement the employee benefits packages. We recommend working with a benefits broker to ensure the benefits align with your company’s talent recruitment and retention goals.

At SoHookd, we have nearly a decade of experience partnering with wellness brokers and helping companies incorporate wellness into their employee benefits packages, increasing their appeal to top talent. We offer customizable programs that you can tailor to your team’s needs and launch within 2 weeks. Additionally, we provide dedicated support services to reduce your HR team’s administrative workload.

Schedule a one-on-one consultation to learn how our wellness benefits packages can increase your competitiveness in the job market.