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Flexible Employee Benefits and How to Implement Them

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There has been a recent trend towards offering more flexible employee benefits. By allowing your employees to choose which benefits they want, you can increase employee satisfaction, which can in turn increase productivity. In order to fully understand this trend, we must look at employee benefits and what it means for them to be flexible.  By the end of the article, you should know exactly what flexible benefit programs look like, as well as how they can help your overall organization.

What Are Flexible Employee Benefits?

Employee benefits refer to programs that provide compensation outside the employee’s regular salary. Most employee benefit programs are designed to help them pay for things such as health care, which would allow them to put less of their own money into essentials like medicine.

When discussing flexible benefits, we are talking about programs that allow each individual to choose which benefits they want to have. For example, someone young might be more likely to want help paying back student loans, while older workers would want more money going into their retirement plan. Flexible benefits can be a way of making group benefit programs work for everyone, no matter their lifestyle or age.

In traditional group benefits programs, each employee gets the same benefits meaning some of those benefits go unused. As in the example above, the younger worker might not even get the money put into their retirement plan as the likelihood of them staying on until retirement is very low. This type of situation can make flexible benefit programs popular among workers and should be considered by employers as a great way to motivate their staff.

Pros for Flexible Benefits

When considering what type of group benefit programs you might get for your employees, it is a good idea to discuss the pros and cons of each choice. For a flexible benefits program, the following are some of the pros.

  • Employee Retention. Employees like to feel autonomous at work, and being able to pick which benefits fit into their lives does this. An employee benefits program that is flexible increases employee satisfaction, making them more likely to keep working for your organization. A high employee retention rate also looks good, making your company a place where people want to work. This is important for your budget as well, as having to hire new employees is always an expensive endeavour.
  • Employee Recruitment. When looking for new employees, if your organization has a good reputation in terms of how they treat their employees, it will be easier to find quality candidates. Companies that treat their employees well often will have top candidates apply to job openings, which means flexible benefits can lead to a workforce that is at the top of their game. This, of course, can then lead to higher production levels and more innovation.
  • Benefits Employees Actually Use. With group benefit programs where everyone is getting the same thing, many people end up not using the benefits they do not want or do not find helpful. This means the company is spending money on employee benefits that are not getting used while at the same time eating into your budget. On the other hand, if you elect to have flexible benefits, your employees are more likely to use those services, and your money will not go to waste.
  • Monthly Budget. Instead of having a year benefit budget, your group benefits provider will allow you to monitor your monthly spending. This is a lot easier to manage as you can see exactly where the money is going and tell exactly where you can afford to spend more. Flexible benefits mean that there is constant monitoring of plans, which is a great way of keeping an eye on how your money is being spent.
  • Less Guess Work. When deciding on a group benefits plan, there are a lot of different options that can be difficult to wade through. The whole idea of having benefits is that workers feel rewarded for a job well done, which in turn creates job satisfaction and increases productivity levels. If you as the manager are picking which benefits to give your employees, you might pick wrong and thus will not gain the same job satisfaction numbers or increased productivity. By giving the choice to your employees, you give them control over an aspect of their compensation, which leaves them feeling good about their job and the company they work for.

    • Cons For Flexible Benefits

    Though there are a lot of positive outcomes of having flexible benefit programs, there are a few things to be aware of when deciding on a route for your company. The following are some of the cons that go along with flexible employee benefits.

    • Time Management. It can take a lot of time to decide which benefits will fit your company culture and workers’ lifestyle—and which you do not care for. There are many options when it comes to employee benefits, so if each worker needs to pick out their benefits individually, you have to factor that into your schedule. Not only does it take a lot of time for each individual to pick their benefits, but it also takes a lot of time to administer the programs. Every time someone wants to change their plan, you have to take the time to go over options and then register these with the policy company.
    • The amount of communication between management and the group benefits company will at least double when choosing flexible employee benefits. You might even have to dedicate a position in your company towards managing the flexible benefits, as changes to the plan on either end would take a lot of communication back and forth. Also, whenever there is a new employee, you would have to make sure that the plan is thoroughly explained before the employee can gain access to employee benefits.
    • In general, flexible employee benefits are more expensive than the plans that are the same for all employees. Though you do have more control over the budget, it can be more expensive to provide flexible benefits as things can cost more when they are not part of an already organized group benefits plan.
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      These cons may deter you from getting a flexible employee benefit plan, but remember to think of the whole picture and the tremendous benefits of having high employee satisfaction rates.

      How to Implement Flexible Employee Benefits

      If you’ve decided to provide flexible benefits for your employees, make sure to do the following tasks.

      1. Cost analysis. Before making a final decision on anything, including which benefits to offer, do a cost analysis of the entire group benefits program. That way, you know exactly which benefits you should offer your employees to choose from.
      2. Employee survey. Check with your employees on which benefits are most likely to be used and wanted. That way, you know what employee benefits would be good to offer and then invest in.
      3. Negotiate. Group benefit companies are highly competitive, so use this to your advantage. Make sure to get quotes from different companies so that if you find a company you like, you can get the best price on what they have to offer.
      4. Train staff. If you take extra time to train staff on the different plans and how to make their choices, you will have to spend less time explaining things to them once the program has started. Though it might seem to be a lot of time to set up, it can run smoothly if each employee has the knowledge they need to make quick decisions and possibly even do some administrative work themselves.
        5.  

        With these steps in place, you should be able to implement a flexible employee benefits program with ease.

        Once implemented, a flexible employee benefits program will keep your workers happy, which can motivate them to work hard to keep production levels high. You might find that flexible benefits not just benefit your workers but rather the entire company.

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