What Is the Importance of Benefits on Employee Retention and Attraction?

When running a business — whether small, medium, or large — there is always a battle to find and keep the best people in any number of positions. A company is only as strong as its workforce, and with competitive offers, a dynamic economy, and ever-shifting industries, holding onto the best employees is a struggle.

The best way to attract and retain great workers is to find out what they care about the most and provide it. Many employers realize that benefits are tied to these desires, but they often have only a loose grasp of what matters the most and how to reasonably provide it to their workers. 

You can overcome all of this by taking a few minutes to learn more about benefits, what employees really think about them, and how to manage them. You might find that this is an easier hurdle to overcome than you originally thought. This can become a source of success for your company instead of an obstacle. 

Why Is It Important for Businesses to Offer Benefits? 

It’s easy to assume that benefits are important to business leaders and employees alike, but you don’t have to rely on assumptions. Strong empirical data exists, and many experts have taken long, hard looks at benefits. You can learn from their discoveries. 

Take this Harvard Business Review analysis. According to their research, 80 percent of workers prefer additional benefits over a flat pay raise. 

Now, that preference will depend on current income, but it’s clear that benefits weigh heavily on the minds of employees. 

If you want to minimize worker turnover, and the costs associated with that turnover, then a focus on benefits can improve retention. Simultaneously, improved benefits can bolster efforts to attract new team members and keep your company competitive in the hiring market.

Which Benefits Are the Most Attractive?

Of course, it’s one thing to say that benefits are important and another to identify which benefits matter the most. Sticking with Harvard Business Review data, there is a clear winner in this category.

Employees care about healthcare benefits more than anything else. Health insurance, dental, and vision are the top concerns across every benefits survey. Robust health coverage will do wonders for employee retention and attraction.

Outside of health coverage, top benefits include life insurance, disability insurance, flexible hours, additional vacation, work from home, and tuition/student loan assistance. 

To put it simply, employees want benefits that clearly impact daily life. 

What Are the Best Ways to Explore Benefits? 

You’ve established that benefits are important, and you have an idea of which ones matter the most to employees. That’s a great start, but the work only really begins here. How do you actually explore benefits? How do you know which insurance plans are best for your employees? From there, how do you negotiate contracts, build up enrollment, and otherwise execute your plans? 

For starters, you can find out what your employees want by asking them. A simple employee survey or questionnaire can see what matters to them most, and you can strategize your benefits packages around those responses.

When it comes to comparing, negotiating, and executing benefits packages, the easiest solution is to get expert help. You can work with a benefits advisor to quickly and deftly browse a number of custom benefits packages. When you select the package, the same advisor can help you deploy the package, push enrollment and educate your employees, and ensure that everything works properly.

What Should I Expect From a Benefits Advisor or Broker?

If you have never worked with a benefits advisor/broker before, then you are essentially walking into the unknown. What should you expect from your advisor? How can you gauge the quality of one broker against another?

The first step is understanding key advisory services. A benefits advisor/broker isn’t just making suggestions. They are providing resources that assist in the entire benefits research and deployment process. Look at this list of services to get an idea: 

• Advising and negotiation services
• Compliance and risk assessments
• Administration support
• Business administration technology partnerships
• HR consulting partnerships
• Professional employer organizations (PEOs) partnerships

Some of those services were probably within your expectations, but others likely extend beyond what you thought an advisor role might cover.  A benefits broker aids with enrollment, and finding benefit admin tools, vendors, and other technology resources that help you manage your benefits moving forward.

Advisors should offer robust services, and when you gauge them by what they can do, it will help you discern which advisors will best partner with your business. 

If you focus on benefits packages that are built around employee requests and a motive of retention and attraction, you will find the right options. Centering your search this way can help you land a great benefits advisor, and together, you can build up this part of your company culture to improve employee satisfaction and make a better workplace overall. Contact AEIS today, and we can show you how it all works.