Since we started our business nearly 20 years ago, we have seen an exponential growth in the number of businesses that offer employee benefits to their staff. In fact, it can be true to say that most companies now have at least a standard benefit offering – some mandatory such as a pension – and some are just expected such as private healthcare, travel card scheme or simply a discounted gym membership.
Over the last decade or so, the rise of the Silicon Valley tech giants have changed the complete land scape and expectations of employees. Airbnb employees get a $2,000 each to stay at any listing around the world. Facebook provides $4,000 in "baby cash" to new parents, plus reimbursement for adoption or egg-freezing, and Netflix is now recognised as of the best places to work if you have kids, with an entire year of leave for new parents.
However, not all businesses have the deep pockets of Amazon, Google, Facebook and Netflix. So, whilst these companies have the ability to steal headlines with their amazing client perks, most companies have to think more realistically. But the aims of any employee benefits strategy remain the same – reduce employee churn and attract the best talent available.
Employee Discounts
As mentioned above, there are several great things that companies can offer their staff from pension contributions, healthcare or child support, but one benefit that has definatly become increasingly popular is the use of employee discounts. This is because it is both easy to implement and can also be easily integrated into a central employee portal.
In short, employee discounts programmes are a great way to offers your employees the chance to enjoy literally thousands of discounts and offers, last minute deals, access to events and travel privileges from a comprehensive range of retail, wellbeing, financial services, travel and leisure categories.
There are three main goals to any employee discount programme:
- Go above and beyond a salary: For many businesses, their biggest expense is their employees. In fact, a recent survey by Predictive Index found that on average 64% of company costs are labour (staff) costs. This is a huge number and a commitment business must make to remain competitive to attract the best talent. In fact, employee discount schemes enable employees to save significant sums of money on their weekly shopping, holidays or general expenses enabling them to get more out of their salary.
- Support lifestyle and wellbeing of your employees – Many companies want to do more for their employees but are either unable to offers something to everyone or afford to offer the privilege. Employee discount schemes are a great way for a company to offer support. A great example of this is Cognizant who use their employee discount scheme and lifestyle concierge offering to specifically help its staff who have relocated for work to settle in and learn more about the new location they have recently moved to. But other companies use employee discounts to enable their staff to pursue their dreams of travel or learning or fitness in a far more affordable manner.
- Differentiate you from your competitors: In today’s world dominated by the “millennial workforce”, the job for life is a thing of the past. According to Davinci Payments, 78% of Gen Z employees and 43% of Millennials plan to leave their job within the next two years. Given this, there is an increasing focus on retention and acquisition of the best talent. Companies are now using their employee discount scheme to do this. If organisations can team up with the right vendor, on top of a salary, the employee discount schemes can offer a number of perks and discounts that others just cannot do.
Employee discount schemes should form a integral part to your companies Talent Strategy if you have one – surprisingly, the Predictive Index research found that only 36% of companies have a Talent Strategy. However, the beauty of a broad and well-balanced employee discount offering is that it can offer a number of benefits to both the company and employees alike.
If you'd like to find out more about how Xexec can help tailor employee benefits and discounts for your team, download our employee benefits e-Book.
