Is Your Company Reaping Rewards from Employee Benefits?
What would happen to your business if you lost your best employees? That’s a chilling thought for most growing companies. In fact, losing even one essential employee could put a serious damper on your company’s ability to function in the short term and succeed in the long term.
The national average for all U.S. companies is 11 percent turnover[1]. That could be a significant drain of talent and knowledge for the average company. However, some companies have found the keys to reducing those numbers: The turnover rate is much lower for winners of The Principal 10 Best Companies for Employee Financial Security–2015.
Two of the winners–Customized Energy Solutions and Fishbowl–report 1 percent voluntary turnover. Alterman Group and USD Group report 2 percent rates; the International Foundation of Employee Benefits and MZA Associates come in at 3percent; and WE Insure Group has 5 percent voluntary turnover.
“For a small company, benefits programs are the single largest expenditure after payroll, but we actually don’t mind paying those costs,” said Fishbowl CEO David Williams. “In fact, we always wish we could do more, and we find great joy in trying.”
The benefits of employee benefits don’t end at keeping employees on the payroll. Year after year, companies tell us that employee benefits also help them boost productivity, improve customer service, and increase employee engagement.
Design benefits around your employees’ needs
To help your company get the most from its investment in employee benefits, make sure the program is designed around the unique needs and preferences of your employee group. Surveys, group meetings, and one-on-one conversations can help pinpoint what employees really want.
Of course, what one employee wants can vary pretty dramatically from what another wants. A lot of that variance is due to life stage. Philip Visali, CEO of WE Insure Group, has seen first-hand just how important great benefits can be many times, but two in particular stand out.
One had to do with witnessing the difficulties single mothers on WE Insure’s staff face when they have to care for their sick children. Visali recognized that such duties often ate up all of a single mother’s available paid time off (PTO), leaving little or no time to pursue other non-work activities that might be important in their lives. “The realization that they deserved to be able to take time off that didn’t revolve around them or their children being sick had a direct impact on our decision to expand our PTO policy,” he says. The other pivotal realization came when he saw the impact that WE Insure’s 401(k) program had on its employees when it was first rolled out. “It was remarkable. For many of them, it really changed their perception of what they were doing from a job to a career.”
The bottom line
A solid employee benefits strategy pays off for the business. Alterman’s benefits strategy, for example, is carefully crafted to address employees’ current and future needs, and all 750 employees understand and appreciate their benefits philosophy.
“Our longer-term employees are very grateful for the benefits they receive, and they understand they would not be able to achieve similar benefits elsewhere,” said Christopher Thiel, executive vice president and CFO at Alterman. “Our new hires are simply amazed that a company is able to provide these benefit levels. Often, the only comment we get during the interview process is, ‘You are kidding me.’”
[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics five-year average (2005 – 2009) voluntary turnover or quit rate
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