Retain Employees With Better Employment Benefits

The motivation, skills, and experience of your workforce are some of the greatest assets your business has. Companies are constantly competing for top talent, and in a tight economy, that can be hard to come by. In order to retain your best employees, it’s important to provide incentives for them to stick around. If you want to retain first-rate employees in your business, you need to incentivize them to stay. 

Here’s how to use employee benefits to build your brand as an employer, keep employees happy, and make it harder for them to leave your company. 

 

Hiring New Employees is Expensive—It’s Much Better to Retain the Ones You Have

Research shows that replacing an employee costs between six to nine months of that employee’s salary. If you were paying them $60,000, it could cost you anything from $30,000 to $45,000 to get a new person in place and trained.

That cost doesn’t just come from the job ads, recruiter time, candidate review, screening, hiring, and onboarding process. It also takes into account the hidden costs—lost productivity, less engagement, training costs, employee errors, and similar. 

With the costs to replace an employee being so high, it’s better to invest some of that lost money into employee benefits and stop people leaving in the first place. A strong HR strategy based on maximizing retention through employee benefits will deliver a solid ROI and help to prevent churn in and out of your business.

 

Several Types of Employee Benefits Will Boost Workforce Satisfaction

It’s worth breaking down benefits for your employees into certain categories, so you can decide what areas you want to boost:

• Financial incentives: Base salary (or hourly rate), bonuses, performance-based pay, retirement contribution matching.
• Convenience incentives: Employer-provided devices, sick pay, vacation pay.
• Health incentives: Employer-paid healthcare, wellness programs, dental coverage, vision coverage.
• Career-boosting incentives: Training, moving up, taking on more responsibilities.
• Culture incentives: Positive workplace environment, autonomy, open feedback.
• Other incentives: Flexible schedule, working from home, access to wages.

Let’s dig into some of these a little more.

 

Offering a Competitive Salary Really Matters

Naturally, an employee’s pay rate is going to be one of the most important factors for attracting and retaining top-tier talent. That matters whether you’re taking on permanent, temporary, or contract-based workers. 

You’ve almost certainly researched the employment marketplace in your industry and already have a good understanding of how much employees expect to be paid.

Of course, there are other ways to make money a major benefit for your employees:

• Offer clear performance-based payments to incentivize workers and show how their actions directly contribute to their rewards and bonuses.
• Provide a 401(K) retirement plan together with generous employer-matching for contributions.
• Allow access to stock options and profit share.
• Allow for flexible wage management—for example by paying wages more frequently or providing assistance through prepaid cards.

Starting at a good pay rate gives you a solid base for showing employees you care about their wellbeing.

 

Making it Easier For Employees to Manage Their Money Goes a Long Way

One of the best ways to help is to offer a convenient way for your employees to get paid with prepaid debit cards. Not only does this eliminate the need for paper checks, but it empowers employees to take control of their finances.

You can run all or part of your payroll using prepaid payroll debit cards. Payroll cards allow employers to load funds directly to the employee’s card account and, in turn, employees have immediate access to their wages.

This means they don’t need to wait for funds to clear and can get access to their money right away by spending on the card or through ATM withdrawals. It’s also extremely helpful for employees without bank accounts, especially temporary or contract workers. Pay cards also can help people to budget better, which means less stress! Employees with less stress are generally more productive, which is good for your bottom line.

If employees are responsible for corporate spending and expenses, then a prepaid expense card is a very effective way to manage spending properly and ensuring they have the funds to help your business. These can be easier to manage than company credit cards or petty cash, and it also means employees don’t have to put business spending on personal cards and then reclaim the costs. 

When it comes to incentivizing employees and rewarding them with bonus payments, a prepaid reward card makes sense. It’s a more tangible way of showing your appreciation than just seeing a number on a paystub.

 

Employees Are Looking for Convenience and Support

Employees enjoy their jobs much more when they’re relaxed, knowing you have them covered. You can make things easier and safer for them in several ways:

• Provide comprehensive health insurance for them and their families. You might want to extend this to dental and vision coverage, and also offer access to wellness programs.
• Allow employees to work remotely and provide the right tools to do so—this is especially important when dealing with the fallout from COVID19.
• Offer a flexible working schedule that lets employees balance their work hours with their personal commitments. 
• Help your employees be more financially responsible, as that means they’ll have fewer problems at home.

Employees are often challenged with managing family time, work commitments, childcare, and other aspects of their lives. If you can reassure them about these basic needs, it means they can be ready for new challenges.

 

Many Individuals Thrive from Training, Challenges, and New Opportunities

Many of your employees will really enjoy stepping up, solving problems, and developing their skills. You can help to make your workplace a great place to work by:

• Investing in employee training so they can progress in their careers and take on new challenges with confidence.
• Providing opportunities to act in a more senior role or swap jobs with someone else in the business to cross-train skills.
• Offering coaching and other types of support to prepare them for new positions.

All of these actions show your investment into individual employees and help them to feel that they are a crucial part of the company’s success. 

 

A Great Culture Goes a Long Way to Helping Employees Feel Welcome

It’s not just the tangible benefits that matter when people decide if they want to work somewhere. It’s also the more subtle influences of the workplace—a strong rapport with one’s team, feeling strongly supported by management, and having an open, no-blame feedback process. 

This gives employees autonomy and clear goals so they can work however they want as they support the aims of your business.

The intangible benefits of “how we do things around here” can make a big difference to how much your employees enjoy their work.

Taken together, all of these employee benefits can significantly boost your retention rates. Start developing your HR strategy now to keep staff within your workforce, make their lives easier, and stay ahead of your competitors.