Flexible benefits can help address a number of common and key challenges HR and benefits professionals face when it comes to employee benefits.
Flexible benefits can also be an important tool for any HR team in achieving the HR objectives they’ve set out.
Businesses and employees have had to be more flexible than ever over the last year in a number of ways to adhere to changing restrictions, changing needs, and wants and to help keep businesses prospering or to take advantage of new opportunities for businesses.
At a time where consumers expect a more personalised experience from brands, employees expect a more personalised experience from their employers too.
To adapt to these changes, businesses need suitable technology. This is where flexible benefits come in.
Employees can personalise their benefits
The pandemic has left people in many different situations. Some have spent lockdown with family while others have been left completely isolated. Some have saved while others have struggled financially. Some have been furloughed while others have worked through the pandemic.
This difference in situations has left people with different needs and priorities.
For example, some of your staff will need more financial support after being hit hard while others might need a more effective way to invest and save than through a low-interest-rate savings ISA. Employee benefits can help in both these scenarios.
This growing difference in needs and priorities means the gap between those who genuinely benefit from your employee's benefits and those who don’t could have widened.
This is where flexible benefits technology can be used to help your employees tailor their benefits to them.
Through our flexible benefits technology on our Salary Extras employee benefits platform, employees can be allocated flexible benefits allowance to allocate towards employee benefits of their choice, meaning they can essentially tailor their employee benefits package to them.
Flexible benefits are one of the best ways to ensure your whole team gets as equal benefit from your employee benefits package as possible.
Improved employee benefits engagement
With an employee benefits package that appeals to more of your employees comes higher employee benefits engagement and higher employee engagement with the business overall.
Flexible benefits help improve the overall employee experience which comes with a number of advantages.
Flexible benefits technology forms part of an employee benefits platform where your employee benefits will be hosted. Hosting all your benefits through a centralised employee benefits platform makes your employee benefits more intuitive and easier to access, removing barriers to employee benefits engagement and helping employees make the most of their employee benefits.
The more your employees get from their employee benefits the more likely they are to champion them internally, further improving employee benefits engagement.
Savings on salary sacrifice schemes
Through salary sacrifice schemes like Holiday Trading, the Bike to Work scheme, and the Car Benefit scheme, it’s not just employees that save but employers save too.
With salary sacrifice schemes, businesses can save on Tax and National Insurance (NI) each time an employee uses the scheme.
The more employee benefits engagement a business gets with their salary sacrifice schemes, the more they could save through Tax and NI.
Flexible benefits can help make this higher employee benefits engagement possible, helping employers save.
That said, flexible benefits should always be considered an investment in your people rather than a way to increase savings through employee benefits.
However, flexible benefits can help demonstrate a clear ROI on your employee benefits through increased employee benefits engagement with your salary sacrifice schemes and therefore increased savings through Tax and NI for your business.
Improved employee retention
If employees get more from their compensation and benefits package, they’re more likely to stay with the business.
For employees to stay with the company and build a genuinely positive relationship with the business, the business needs to help make a genuine difference to their lives and facilitate the achievement and acquisition of the things that matter most to them.
Whether it’s helping an employee save money, improve their health or get out of debt, for example, genuinely supporting an employee in making their life easier and happier improves their relationship with the business and improves the chances they’ll stay with you.
Employee benefits can help with each of these things.
Workplace ISA’s give employees savings and investment options they won’t find on the high street. The Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provides valuable support for helping improve an employee’s mental health. The financial planning employee benefit helps provide invaluable access to expert financial advice for any financial situation they find themselves in.
By providing a wide range of employee benefits that can be tailored to employees through flexible benefits technology, businesses can drastically improve their employee retention rates and reduce employee turnover.
Improved employee recruitment
When it comes to finding talented new candidates, one majorly important aspect of your job advert is the benefits section.
According to research by One Medical, 69% of employees report they might choose one job over another if it offered better employee benefits.
Offering great employee benefits is one thing, but your benefits on offer may be appealing to less candidates than you think, particularly if you don’t offer a wide range or offer flexible benefits.
If candidates know they’ll have the option to tailor their benefits to them and their family and gain a real genuine benefit from your employee benefits package they’re more likely to apply and statistically speaking are more likely to choose your offer over the offer of a competing employer.
Also, if your current employees are getting more from their employee benefits, they’re much more likely to refer talented candidates to you to fill new roles.
Overall, flexible benefits help create a better employee experience, making your business a more attractive place to work.
