How your benefits strategy can help recruitment and retention.
Attracting and retaining the best quality staff remains a key focus for employers and the employee benefits you offer can be an important attraction for them.
Indeed, a survey by People Management indicates that more than half of younger workers say benefits are a top priority when job hunting.
However, the survey highlighted a mismatch between the employee benefits offered by many employers and what employees wanted. For example, private medical insurance was a top priority for employees but is provided by just a quarter of businesses.
It’s clear that tailoring your employee benefits proposition to meet your employees’ needs can both help attract talent and retain staff. However, this is not always happening in practice.
Research cited in Employee Benefits shows that fewer than a quarter of employers target benefits support to specific employee groups dependent on the demographic and needs of their workforce.
A one-size fits all approach to employee benefits is no longer the best way forward in most cases. As our previous article on flexible benefits stated, tailoring your benefits proposition to suit your workforce’s demographic is becoming an imperative to attract and retain the best talent.
Research and communications
Businesses need to focus on aligning their benefits strategy with their recruitment goals by understanding what employees most want. Tailoring benefits to meet individual needs can attract talent, so identifying the issues your existing and potential employees are facing is essential.
This can be done by getting employee feedback through surveys and other communications methods. It can also be done in exit interviews, where you can ascertain what your competitors are offering. Once you know the needs and preferences of your employees, you can offer a range of flexible employee benefits that truly add value.
And once you’ve reshaped your benefits strategy, you need to regularly communicate to both existing and new employees about the available benefits. This could be done, for example by sharing stories on your website or social media channels about how staff are using these and what they do to improve their work life balance.
Valued benefits
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, the jobs market has become more employee-led, resulting in employers needing to adapt their reward and benefits strategies to keep up with demands and to stay attractive.
It’s no longer enough to offer the just the basic benefits. If the aim is to attract and retain the best talent, employers’ must recognise that employee benefits are not just ‘nice to have’ perks but are an essential part of a reward strategy. They should invest in benefits that attract as well as retain employees.
The next step
If you are looking to attract and retain the best quality staff and feel that your employee benefits package is due for a makeover, why not give us a call. We can help you review your existing proposition and discuss with you the benefits of a flexible benefits approach.