7 Employee Benefits Trends for 2019
Employee benefits continue to be an important consideration for employers who are looking to make the biggest impact with their employee investments. As unemployment rates remain low, candidates are comparing benefits that companies offer in addition to cash compensation and reputation.
1. Financial Wellness
Health benefits have taken center stage in recent years with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. However, it is important for companies to also consider the financial health of their employees. After all, if employees are worried about their finances, they are not likely putting 100% into their work.
Financial wellness benefits include retirement benefits, such as a 401(k). They can also include short-term and long-term disability benefits, which are often thought of in conjunction with health benefits, life insurance, or other voluntary benefits. Some companies are also helping students pay off student loans, although this remains a unique perk.
Financial wellness perks can also include making available educational programs around financial wellness, budgeting, or other relevant financial planning information.
2. Parental Perks
Legislatures across the country are enacting laws that allow for parental leave, so companies need to become familiar with their obligations. HR solutions can help companies who want to get ahead of this trend by enacting policies that will attract and retain employees.
The Society for Human Resource Management has been surveying companies on paid parental leave benefits and have found that this is an area where companies are increasingly adding benefits. Paid maternity leave is offered by 35% of organizations that participated in the survey, up nine percentage points from 2016.
Paternity leave is also up five percentage points. As a note, the survey specifically excluded leaves covered by short-term disability and state law. This is a hot topic in employee incentives and one to watch in upcoming years.
3. Voluntary Benefits
Voluntary employee benefits are optional benefits. Often, these are offered at low- or no cost to employers. This includes accidents, critical illness, cancer, life insurance, and other similar programs.
These are offered to employees because the cost is lower when offered to a group where membership in the group, i.e. as an employee of the company, is required to be part of the plan.
As an example, life insurance is based on age regardless of whether you buy it as an individual or as part of a group plan, although there may be additional health requirements as well.
As a group, people who are currently working are statistically less likely to have a life insurance claim than someone who purchases an individual policy, particularly when most group plans have an age ceiling. Therefore, this benefit can be offered at a low cost to employees.
4. Benefits Over Salary
With a low unemployment rate, companies are finding it increasingly hard to find top talent. Having a competitive compensation strategy is important and salary is an important component of that strategy.
However, it is important for companies to consider what is included in their compensation mix. Companies who are creative with benefits, work-from-home, and other perks AND who can articulate the value of these benefits are leaders when it comes to employee incentives.
The key to attracting and retaining top employees is in communicating the value of these non-monetary employee benefits.
How can your company do this?
For benefits such as health plans, you can use benefits technology to calculate the cost of benefits to the company.
For other HR solutions, you may need to get more creative to come up with a quantitative analysis. You can calculate the average commute in your area and multiply that by the IRS’ mileage reimbursement.
If you are located in an urban center and most people take public transportation, you can calculate the cost savings of not having to take public transportation. In both cases, you can use the average commuting time and multiply that by the employee’s hourly rate.
5. Benefits Technology
Technology allows companies to highlight their offerings to employees in an easy-to-use but highly meaningful way. In the past, small employers often relied on paper applications for their benefits.
Paper applications leave a lot of room for human error, confusion, and missed opportunities for employers to highlight their employee incentives.
Now, online platforms make benefits enrollment and re-enrollment quick and easy.
In addition, benefits administrators like Vantage Point can help employees understand the cost of different plan options based on their expected needs.
Not only does this increased transparency of the out-of-pocket cost for employees, but it also allows employees to maximize their benefits based on their individual needs.
For companies, this has the added benefit of reducing the transactional HR tasks so they can focus on helping the company move forward through HR strategy.
6. Direct Contracting with Health Care Providers
Health care remains an important consideration in 2019. As health care costs continue to rise, companies are looking for unique ways to get the most out of their money.
One way some companies are doing this is by contracting directly with health care providers such as local doctors and hospitals. While this can result in cost savings, managers should consider the impact this will have on employees.
For example, if local hospitals are the only option, what happens if an employee is traveling or need care not available with the contracted provider? Also, employees may have concerns over choice and privacy when the company appears more involved in the choice of providers.
7. Company Culture
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of company culture and the impact that has on employees. Maybe you have catered lunches on certain days. Perhaps you have a strict policy on work-life balance where employees can’t be contacted after hours.
Every company has unique perks that may seem small but are important to employees who work there. People want to feel good about where they work, so use this hand-in-hand with your other HR solutions.
Employee benefits trends continue to be important for the HR strategy. Now, it’s not just health care that employers should consider, but a wide range of incentives that motivate and excite employees. What else would you add to the list?
Call us. We are here to help.
Monday – Friday: 8:30 am – 5:30 pm (516) 599-2120 or Info@VantagePointBenefit.com