As work continues evolving, professionals are demanding better employee benefits worldwide. As a result, the importance of employee benefits has grown in the past few years. Nowadays, ensuring your business offers such benefits can be vital in lots of industries.

In this article, we’ll explore employee benefits in detail. We’ll look at how they can be advantageous for your business and cover a few popular benefits that should be easy to implement.

What are employee benefits?

Let’s start off by exploring the core concept of our guide. An employee benefit is simply non-salary compensation provided by an employer to their workers. These benefits can take a wide variety of forms, some even being financial like bonuses or reimbursements. Most commonly, though, employee benefits are non-monetary items like insurance or professional courses. 

Exploring the importance of employee benefits for businesses

Let’s now dive into the main topic of this guide: why are employee benefits important for businesses?

Improved employee engagement

The first reason why benefits are important is engagement. If you’re not aware, professional engagement refers to how committed employees are to their jobs. Providing staff with various perks can help ensure they feel valued in their teams. A high sense of purpose is one of the most important ingredients of high professional engagement. In turn, this will provide your company with lots of measurable benefits. Your business will experience increased productivity, decreased turnover, and much more. Check out our article on improving employee engagement to explore the topic in-depth.

Enhanced employee retention

The concept of employee retention is closely tied to that of engagement. Enthusiastic professionals are much more likely to stay satisfied with their jobs for longer. In turn, they will be less likely to search for new opportunities, leading to a lower turnover rate. A high employee retention rate can assist your business in many ways. It can help you save money on recruitment and training costs, as well as time in HR and management operations. High-quality benefits can help you boost your business’s retention rate and maintain it in the long run.

Boosted overall productivity

Employee benefits can help improve your team’s productivity in different ways. Some benefits can result in a direct improvement in productivity. Two popular examples are flexible working schedules and remote work arrangements—we’ll cover these in detail shortly. These two can help your employees enhance their focus.

Other benefits can boost team productivity in less obvious yet no less important ways. For example, health insurance can help your staff avoid illnesses and look after their health. This will reduce how much sick leave they would need to take, allowing them to spend more time working. One more aspect that makes health insurance an attractive benefit is that it shows the company’s attitude toward employee health.

Increased company output

All of the above-mentioned points will lead to an increased overall output for your business. Employees who feel appreciated will not only help you make more profits but also increase the quality of your offerings. This will contribute greatly to your company’s long-term growth momentum. Increased company output further underscores the importance of employee benefits. They are vital for businesses that want to achieve steady growth in the long run.

Most popular employee benefits around the world

Now, we’ll explore a few of the most popular employee benefits offered by firms worldwide.

Flexible working schedules

Flexible working hours are a popular perk that’s available at most businesses worldwide. As the name implies, a flexible schedule will allow some deviation for employees. Professionals can use this to work when they feel the most productive, such as early in the morning or later in the evening. While it doesn’t seem like this will have a big impact, working at the right time may be critical for some professionals to perform their best.

Remote working arrangements

Remote working arrangements can be similar to flexible schedules in lots of ways. They can help boost productivity by offering teams more opportunities to be productive. This is especially true for businesses offering both remote work and telework to their staff, as employees can then choose the option that suits them best. Over the past few years, remote working arrangements have become quite popular across the globe. As a result, offering them to your team should be a pretty safe strategy for your business.

Health insurance

Health insurance is a very popular employee benefit, especially in countries that don’t have free healthcare systems. It can provide your employees with a measurable safety net if they experience any sudden health issues. This can help your staff maintain their motivation and productivity in such situations.

Career growth opportunities

Career development benefits are an excellent perk to offer to your existing team members. These can include professional courses, workshops, or even learning reimbursements and credits. They can also be the perfect choice when recruiting new talent. Offering such employee benefits can help you attract professionals who are looking to grow in their careers. People like this are likely to be more enthusiastic about their positions and more eager to perform their best.

Paid time off

Unlike many other employee benefits, paid time off is a legal requirement in some countries around the globe. If your business operates in such places, you’re likely already offering the perk to your team. In places where it isn’t required, however, PTO can be a great choice. This is because it is relatively simple to offer, requiring little more than time tracking software. A high-quality time tracker like WebWork can make using and offering PTO a piece of cake.

Reimbursements

Just like PTO, reimbursements can also be quite easy to implement. These are generally used for things like travel and commuting, insurance, and phone plans.

Offering employee benefits for small businesses

Having explored the importance of employee benefits, you may now want to offer them to your team. Before bringing this article to a close, let’s briefly explore how you can do so if you’re a small business owner.

Offering simple employee benefits

To start off, your business should offer a few simple benefits. These include flexible working schedules and a few paid days off for special occasions like birthdays. These won’t require much investment to set up, both in terms of effort and finances. As mentioned previously, you can simplify the process for some perks with time trackers.

Offering complex employee benefits through providers

Some benefits, like insurance and reimbursements, will require more work to set up. Because of this, you may want to partner with a dedicated provider to help you purchase them for your team. Unlike simpler benefits, this will require a bit of upfront investment to get started. But, working with providers can be worthwhile for your organization in the long run.

Final thoughts

The importance of employee benefits cannot be understated. They can offer measurable benefits for businesses of all sizes across the world. To take advantage of these, you should offer a few perks at your business. Start with simple ones like paid time off or a flexible work schedule. As your company grows in size, you can expand your benefits to attract the best talent and further stand out from the competition.