The top challenge employers face when offering employee benefits is controlling costs, according to research commissioned by reward technology provider Vebnet.
The survey, which questioned reward and pension decision makers in 200 of the top 1,000 companies in the UK, found that 34% saw mitigating cost as the main consideration when running employee benefits provision.
Second and third respectively are maintaining a competitive advantage and communication, while the least important consideration of those questioned was meeting the diverse needs of the business with only 4% highlighting it.
Almost three quarters (72%) believed they were leveraging maximum value from their current benefit spend while 26% believed they were not.
The survey also asked the respondents to rank their reward objectives in order of importance with almost 50% choosing ‘employer of choice’ as number one, however almost 40% also ranked it as their least important objective.
The overall key objective for employees was to maximise cost savings, but interestingly future cost control measures were less important. Employee engagement, while not the number one consideration scored highly as a second consideration with 31%.
Richard Morgan, director of consultancy at Vebnet said: “The top three considerations for employers when it comes to flexible benefits are both interesting and encouraging as they are all integral. The invaluable cost savings that can be achieved by employers and employees through the implementation of schemes such as salary sacrifice, holiday buy and sell and retail vouchers has been demonstrated many times before.”