Are your employee benefits giving you the payback you deserve in increased employee appreciation and satisfaction? Chances are, your employee benefits are not. On average, organizations spend 41 cents for employee benefits for every dollar of payroll. That's 29% of the total employee compensation package. Research reported in the journal, Personnel Psychology, suggests that employees only understand and appreciate between 31 and 68% of the cost or market value of the employee benefits they receive.
In fact, the most recent data indicates that employers are spending 43% of total pay on types of employee benefits.
Employees undervalue their comprehensive set of employee benefits for many reasons including: employers communicate the value of employee benefits poorly, the employees have little or no choice in employee benefits packages or options, and the employees misunderstand the market value of their employee benefits.
Maximize the Value of Employee Benefits Expenditures
Employers can overcome these factors by allowing employees to make choices about the types of employee benefits and by providing lots of information. You can jump start the education process by providing paycheck inserts that detail your cost for each employee benefit. Other ways to get employees to think about the value of their employee benefits include interactive computer quizzes, employee benefits fairs, telephone hot lines, workplace posters and video tapes or television discussing employee benefits.
Firms that wish to maximize the value of their employee benefits expenditures need to survey their employees to ask them the types of employee benefits that they value and how much they value each type. Employee benefits surveys or focus groups are important first steps in understanding employee preferences for types of benefits. Relevant questions about the desired types of employee benefits might include the