Over the last 10 years the evolution of the benefits package has become the deciding factor for employee retention and engagement. Regardless of employees’ ‘buy in’ or promotion promises; additional value ad benefits are now crucial to the overall success in staff retention. Furthermore they’re now a massive part of the attraction piece.
Benefits can covers a cross-section of business sectors; IT/Tech, Consumer, services and retail all have their own take on the ‘modern’ package. Flexibility is very apparent nowadays; the market shows significant variation depending on a variety of factors including location, size of business & variance in the workforce. Companies such as Cisco Systems (physical therapy and acupuncture), Google (free meals + bowling alley), Microsoft (leave is paid, rather than unpaid) Visa (Visa offers commuter benefits to reward them for employees ‘green’ efforts) all offer their own unique benefits.
A survey conducted in January 2015 revealed employees top 9 most ‘sought after’ benefits packages:
The above graph show’s a variety of the ‘most favoured benefits’ across the board, ranging from insurance based, to incentivised company related schemes. Sometimes it will be down to the individual to negotiate what’s right from them from a choice; other times a particular company may take pride in a certain package they offer and there’s an expectancy to ‘play ball’ with their current offering.
Running a modern recruitment business, we come across a multitude of candidates who have been enticed by a companies’ benefits package and their flexibility to ‘top up’ on a basic package. There are a growing number of instances where this is key despite a professional being offered the same, or in some cases a lower basic salary.
With the evolution of the benefits package over the past few years, it’s easy to see just why this is becoming the real ‘attraction piece’ in relation to a job offer. That being said, it’s easier to see why professionals at executive level are really starting to heavily examine the benefits on offer, versus the basic salary.
A recent real time situation saw one of our consultants dealing with the latter stages of a process where a candidate who had been offered a role, was negotiating on the auxiliary benefits and possibility of relocation assistance.
“A candidate I worked with was offered an attractive eCommerce Director role in London; the candidate was based in Lancashire at the time. The prospective company offered the same salary, but offered a full relocation package, which included: moving assistance, 50% subsidiary on rental unto £2500 PM and reimbursement on travel costs for the first 6 weeks”
This example shows that companies will often look to a benefits’ packages contents to push deals over the line if need be; where restrictions may be in play with internal salary/role banding can be countered with exciting bonuses and incentives.
A few UK businesses that were recently recognized for providing the best benefits to their employees, at the EBA14 Awards, were:
- (@LDNOverground) London Overground Rail Operations – Health and Wellbeing Strategic Action Plan
- (@CapitalOne) Capital One’s – Travel to Work scheme
- (@marksandspencer) Marks and Spencer – Choices and Perks
- (@MyNottingham) Nottingham City Council – Works Perks
Another example of a major force in this area is the birth over the last 20 years of outsourced HR & employee engagement businesses. One of the major players in this scene are Eden Red. @edenreduk
Case Study: Edenred
@Edenreduk are renowned for offering one of the most reputable benefits’ packages on the market and recently launched it’s new scheme, ‘Reward Hub’, after being acquired by @SAFRAN.
It proved a success within a few month of its launch in December 2013 at Safran (@SAFRAN); with the large majority of employees expressing an interest in additional voluntary benefits and those using the additional discounts making savings of more than £3,000.
With this being a key topic of discussion and influence in our service area, we are keen to hear your thoughts. What would personally convince YOU to make a move? What would be the highlights and desirable features of a benefits package related to your career?
Please take two minutes to give us your thoughts on the subject by completing the survey below.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2HTSTQF
(Disclaimer: your name and company will be kept completely confidential)
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