Employee benefits that workers actually want have changed so much over the last decade, with employees now wanting much more than just a decent salary.
A well-thought-out employee benefits package is vital to any successful recruitment drive and can have many positive ramifications for employers. Offering decent incentives is important in securing top talent and the right candidates for your business – even more so at the moment with the recruitment market being so candidate driven.
Interestingly, recent research shows that half of employers advertise legal requirements as job perks. As a result, by reviewing, updating and improving your employee benefits package, you can stay ahead of your competitors and stand out to talented candidates.
We spend a lot of time talking to candidates about what they want from their next job role and negotiating contracts. These are some of the company / employee benefits that are important to them at present…
Practical / Family Friendly Employee Benefits
Practical incentives make your employees working lives easier and can improve their work / life balance. Examples include free parking, discounted public transport, cycle-to-work schemes and flexible working hours. With the latter being very beneficial to employees with children.
In addition, other family friendly benefits include: enhanced maternity leave; shared parental leave; childcare vouchers; and offering additional child days off to parents. For example, giving parents additional time off that doesn’t impact their holiday allowance if their child needs a healthcare appointment. Maternity / Parental leave is a benefit often forgotten by employers.
Another huge incentive that has been proven possible across many sectors over the last two years is remote / hybrid working. We are seeing more candidates wanting hybrid working to break up long commutes. Furthermore, hybrid working has a positive impact on work / life balance.
If you can offer hybrid working to employees / prospective employees, you will stand out from your competitors. Currently, many candidates are being encouraged back into offices full-time.
Another key benefit that job seekers often negotiate on is holidays. Going beyond the 28 statutory days, which can include bank holidays, will make your job offers stand out. Some companies also allow their employees to take unpaid leave on top of their holiday allowance. This is great for people wanting to go travelling or if something unexpected crops up.
Another growing trend is giving staff their birthday off, as well as additional days holiday for exceptional achievements and long service.
Currently being trialled in the UK are 4 day working weeks. We did a poll on this recently and the result revealed that 93% of people would be in favour of a 4 day working week. Watch this space on this one!
Financial Employee Benefits
With the cost of living increasing and despite the Governor of the Bank of England saying not to ask for a big pay rise, offering regular salary reviews or annual pay rises in line with inflation would be an attractive incentive to employees. Other traditional benefits that companies offer include: bonus schemes for when targets are met; Christmas saving schemes; discounted legal advice; share schemes; and enhanced pension schemes.
Additionally, many companies also offer sick pay beyond statutory sick and death in service to help employees and their families if they become ill.
Emotional Employee Benefits
In addition to supporting employees’ emotional needs, these incentives tie in with companies Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Popular incentives include nominating charities to support, team activities and fundraising events to raise money for the chosen charities, days off for volunteering and offering training / mentoring schemes.
Health and Well-being Employee Benefits
This is an area of benefits that employees are valuing more and more. They range from adapting your office environment to purchasing health and well-being incentives for employees.
Office incentives include: having quiet zones or dedicated chill-out zones; offering healthy snacks; and having mental health first-aiders available to support staff. In addition, encourage employees to take their full lunch break and to get some fresh air on their break. This can make a huge difference to their mood and energy levels.
Another incentive to support well-being is hosting company mindfulness sessions. This is something that we did recently one lunchtime using the Headspace app and everyone enjoyed it. We all found it useful to just take 15 minutes out of our working day to relax and recharge. Some companies also offer staff well-being days off.
Some paid for incentives, that are popular incentives, include: health insurance; dental care; well-being app subscriptions; and discounted gym and exercise class memberships.
By offering some of these incentives, they will not only support the health and well-being of employees but will also make them happier and more productive at work.
Company Culture Employee Benefits
By having a company culture that works for all employees, rewards employees for their work and encourages a one team ethos is a huge incentive for potential employees. Incentives that enable this are team building activities and having company days out to reward hard work. In order to help with this, view our blog on how to create successful team building events here.
Other company culture benefits include: dress down Fridays, company lunches and drinks, having games and pool tables in the office, summer BBQs, and Christmas parties.
How to choose employee benefits for your company?
Above, we have identified a lot of employee benefits and it’s not practical to offer them all to employees. However, if you are a business manager or are recruiting, we suggest reviewing the employee benefits you currently offer and enhance your package. We recommend selecting some out of each category above that are reasonable for your company to offer.
Before you finalise your employee benefits package, try asking or anonymously surveying staff to get their thoughts on your current company benefits / incentives and any areas of improvement. Additionally, research your direct competitors to see what they offer their employees.
If you would like any further advice on benefits to offer employees to enhance your recruitment strategy, please get in touch by contacting us here.
About The Eventus Recruitment Group
We are award-winning recruitment specialists for Legal, HR, Finance and Accountancy sectors. Established in 2008, we have a wealth of experience in recruiting the right candidates with the skills and efficiency to help businesses thrive across the UK. To view our latest jobs, please click here or get in touch for a confidential discussion.
We offer a bespoke service to help you find talented candidates who match with your business and requirements. Furthermore, we will always work with integrity and honesty utilising our expertise to add real value to your recruitment strategy. If you would like advice and support with recruiting, please click here to contact us.