From achieving a positive work-life balance to getting high-quality healthcare, there are many potential benefits workers look for when they’re searching for a job. As an employer, offering these benefits helps you stand out to potential applicants. It can also boost your retention rate and employee satisfaction. 

While offering benefits can sound daunting to new businesses, it doesn’t have to be. Once you know the type of employee benefits you want to provide, the next step is finding the right provider and incorporating them into your workplace. With a thoughtful approach, you can maximize the return on your investment and ensure your workers get the employee benefits plan they need.

Types of Employee Benefits

Once you have a general budget in mind, you can start figuring out which benefits make sense for your company. Some benefits, like health insurance or workers’ comp, may already be a requirement for your business size or location. For the non-required benefits, it pays to be strategic. You need to figure out what your ideal employee is looking for and do your best to offer it. The following list includes some of the most popular benefits plans. 

Health and Wellness 

Health and wellness benefits are one of the most common options. This benefits type includes everything from health insurance to Fitbits. Typically, health insurance includes medical, dental, and vision insurance. In total, 67% of employees report that health insurance is the most important benefit.

Wellness programs can run the gamut from mental health therapy to under-desk treadmills and fitness devices. At other organizations, wellness benefits include smoking cessation programs or wellness stipends.

Insurance Benefits

Life and disability insurance are both popular options among employees. On average, one out of four 20-year-old workers will spend at least a year disabled by the time they reach retirement age. With disability insurance, they can be financially protected from unexpected injuries. Meanwhile, life insurance ensures that the employee’s family has peace of mind.

Time-Off Benefits

On a federal level, unpaid leave is a requirement through the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Many states also have specific regulations for paid sick leave or family leave. As an organization, you have the option to provide extra holidays and paid time off (PTO).

Financial Benefits

Financial benefits may include retirement plans, bonuses, or stock options. Through federal tax credits like the SECURE Act 2.0, you can significantly reduce the cost of setting up your retirement plan. All of these options help to reward workers for all of the effort they put in at your company. 

Besides time off, financial bonuses, and health benefits, there are other options you can offer as well. For instance, you could set up an employee assistance program (EAP), educational assistance, or remote work options.

The Best Practices for Managing Your Employee Benefits

Building your benefits plan can be challenging. While you want the most appealing benefits package possible, there are also budget constraints that can limit how extensive your benefits can be. As a result, you have to be diligent about carving out a unique, budget-friendly plan.

To get started on your benefits package selection, consider some of the following features.

1. Get Feedback From Your Workers

First, survey your employees or conduct some demographic research to determine what type of benefits they might need. For example, splurging on parking passes at a neighboring lot might not be useful if your average worker commutes by bus.

The easiest way to find out what your workers want most is to ask them. Once your benefits plan is actually in operation, you can collect data on which benefits were utilized the most.

2. Set Up the Right Benefits

Once you have an understanding of what your employees want, you need to find the right benefits plan. At Asure Software, we can help you find the health plan your business needs and set up prepaid cards for your employees’ flexible spending account (FSA) or health savings accounts (HSA) funds. Designing an entirely new benefits plan can be daunting, which is why we help with selecting wellness plans, managing COBRA coverage, and administering benefits.

After you have a general idea about what you need, it’s time to review your budget. Ultimately, your budget will determine exactly how many benefits you’re allowed to adopt. When calculating the funding allotment, don’t forget that many employee benefits, such as retirement benefits, are more affordable than they appear because of tax deductions and credits.

You’ll also want to spend some time researching the different options and negotiating with the plan provider. By negotiating lower prices with multiple financial institutions, wellness programs, and insurance providers, you can ensure your company gets a better deal on its services.

3. Educate Your Employees on the Benefits Plan

For your plan to be effective at boosting employee satisfaction and retention, your workers need to adopt it. Employee education helps workers understand the advantages of using their benefits. Then, the benefits administrator can handle all of the legwork involved in setting up the right benefits plan.

4. Adopt the Latest Technology

To make managing your plan easier, you need the right benefits software. Alternatively, you can outsource the management of your benefits to a third party. Many compliance requirements also involve record keeping, so a technologically advanced solution makes your legal compliance easier.

5. Stay Up to Date on Regulatory Changes

There are many different laws about which benefits you can provide and what has to be included. The following list includes just a few of these regulatory requirements.

• Affordable Care Act (ACA)
• ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act)
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
• COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act)
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

If you don’t have an HR compliance checklist, it’s a good idea to set one up. Then, you can use your checklist to verify that all of your benefits are in compliance with the law. 

6. Outsource Complex Tasks

For small businesses, many of these tasks are time- and knowledge-intensive. Even if you have a large corporation, setting aside a specific department to review, set up, and manage benefits can be cost-prohibitive. As a result, it’s worth considering the advantages of outsourcing your complex benefits tasks to an expert. 

By outsourcing employee benefits administration, you can ensure your company is in legal compliance with changing rules and statutes. You don’t have to devote valuable HR resources to managing benefits. Additionally, the benefits administrator can handle the research and negotiating involved in setting up new benefits. For example, Asure is a Broker of Record (BOR), so we can streamline all of your administration hassles and give you the best employee benefits possible.

The Advantages of Offering Top Employee Benefits

As an employer, offering employee benefits provides you with a few key advantages. 

• Attract Top Talent: Employees want to work somewhere that gives them good benefits. In fact, 96% of employees list employer-sponsored health insurance as extremely important or very important to them.
• Reduce Turnover: When you offer good benefits, your employees don’t have to go to another organization to get retirement options or healthcare. Additionally, these benefits exert a positive pull on workers because many benefits disappear when employees leave your company.
• Ensure Legal Compliance: Some benefits, like health care, are a legal requirement. By offering these benefits, you can ensure your company can avoid facing non-compliance penalties.
• Boost Employee Morale: When you offer desirable benefits, it can boost employee satisfaction and morale. In turn, this can play a direct role in your company’s productivity and profitability. 
• Improve Employee Financial Security: Many benefits, like retirement accounts and bonuses, directly improve an employee’s financial security. Health insurance can also improve the employee’s financial security by helping them avoid unexpected medical expenses. Thanks to better financial security, employees will experience less stress and be more productive at work.

Get Help Administrating Your Employee Benefits

Many of the largest corporations already have extensive benefits packages. As a small business owner, a top benefits package helps you compete for top employees. However, administering benefits can be challenging for small businesses. By partnering with a professional employee benefits administration company, you can get help finding, negotiating, and managing your company’s benefits.

To learn more about how we can help, connect with one of our team of small business payroll and HR professionals today.