Employers usually give their employees room for innovation. Build a better mousetrap. Think outside the box. Push the envelope.
Unfortunately, companies don’t always take their own advice when it comes to employee benefits. One offers the same old tried-and-true benefits package as the next one. For prospective employees, the benefits are a wash in their deliberations about which job to take.
Innovative benefits options that offer flexibility provide employers with a stellar opportunity to distinguish themselves. That’s important since companies are competing to recruit and retain talent as fiercely as they are customers.
In addition to the basic expectations for benefits packages, like health insurance and 401k matches, get creative. If you do, you can wow prospective employees. The modern workplace has entered new territory. Keep up with these innovative employee benefit options.
Meaningful Discounts
Everyone likes to get a good deal on products, services, and experiences. You know your customers do, so why not your employees?
Offering a corporate discount program as a benefit of employment is a great way to show you value them. Just make sure your program provides significant discounts and a broad range of types so there’s something for everyone. Work with a program provider to make it easy for you to administer and just as easy for employees to use.
Great deals on products employees use all the time are just as important as deep discounts on dream vacation packages. The options are virtually endless, so ask your workers for input. Make them think of you fondly every time they use a discount when they’re off the clock.
Pet Projects
Whether they have kids or not, most of your employees consider their pets to be important members of their families. To show them you care about their fur babies, include them in benefit packages.
Pet insurance coverages run the gamut, from routine care to emergency and surgical procedures, medications, microchipping, and more. If you offer bereavement leave for family members, extend it to allow time to grieve the loss of pets as well. And include pet healthcare, training, and other appointments as part of employees’ paid time off.
Keep in mind that for many of your workers, their pets are their only children. Including pet-related benefits levels the field between employees who consider their pets children and their parent counterparts. After all, family is family.
Excursion Extras
Many people have been there. You attend a conference or meetings in a great locale but don’t get to enjoy the location much while you’re there. Wouldn’t it be nice to stay an extra couple of days after the work-related event?
The company has already paid for employee travel expenses and the hotel room during the conference. Offering them extra nights, often still at the conference rate, is a relatively easy and inexpensive perk. And if you want to provide a little extra cash for meals or a guided tour, even better.
Funding some post-conference downtime is a great way to energize employees before they return to put what they’ve learned to use. Truth be told, it might encourage them to attend the entire conference instead of skipping out to lay on the beach. You and your employees make the most of the trip.
Champion Causes
Employees like to work for companies who demonstrate a commitment to corporate social responsibility. Many of them volunteer for nonprofit organizations and support causes during their free time. They value an employer who’s willing to make the world a better place as well.
A transparent way to show employees you care about the world is to support them in their volunteer efforts. Add benefits like allowing them to devote a certain number of hours at work to their cause or PTO for volunteering. Let them use company resources, like photocopiers and paper, for volunteer projects. And it’s OK to ask them to track those expenses for corporate bookkeeping.
Boosting your own CSR by supporting your employees’ good works is a good fit. Being a champion will go over well with all your stakeholders as well as your customers. And it will, in fact, help make the world a better place.
Family Building
Workers of every generation bring unique qualities to the workplace. Those who are younger are balancing career-building with efforts to start a family if they choose to have one. Those who are older may be finding themselves taking care of elderly parents.
Family affects how your employees do their jobs. And since family is a priority, they should be a focus when designing a benefits package. Companies can offer the option to have supplemental insurance for fertility treatment. They can also provide benefits that support employees’ caregiving expenses, like elder daycare and in-home care.
At both ends of this continuum, provide generous PTO for employees. Some are managing the frequency of provider visits and time-sensitive injections during fertility treatment. Others need to take parents to appointments with doctors and other specialists. A family-facing benefits package shows you consider your employees as family as well.
Keep Up With the Times
You know that if your brand is going to outperform the competition in the market, it needs to innovate. That’s as true for hiring and retaining talent as it is for attracting and holding on to customers.
These days, the rules have changed. Employees want to work for companies that demonstrate they value them whether they’re on the clock or off. A benefits package designed with a little out-of-the-box creativity is sure to distinguish your brand as a great place to work.