Workplace, employee benefits can help to entice talented new starters and lead to higher employee retention and also motivation levels.
However, many businesses see this as a one-off princess – get the benefits right and then they can be left to do their thing, running nicely in the background.
Increasingly, that approach might be misguided.
Modern businesses thrive on innovation, being iterative and learning fast. They have the ability to try things to see what works and quickly ditch those that do not.
Workplace benefits can be seen this way too.
There are some that it may always be beneficial to offer – this will vary depending on the organisation, but might include the EAP, workplace nursery provision, discounted gym membership and leasing for everything from cars through to phones.
Other options might vary as the workplace demographic changes, or be brought in to try and entice a certain type of new starter.
An organisation that has no recent graduates among its employees might not have benefits geared to this group – adding them could be a way to help break this trend.
How can this be done without it being arbitrary – trying stuff for the sake of it, without impact?
One way is simply to ask employees which benefits they would find useful. Now, admittedly, if you ask them out of the blue it might be a question that leads to a lack of answers.
Employees might just list benefits they are already aware of, not tapping into the real range of possibilities.
An expert in these benefits can help. They can run sessions to find out which benefits would interest employees, or simply provide a list of all the available options.
As an organisation, you can see a huge shopping list of benefits and decide which ones you’d be interested in trying, or editing this list to then put to employees.
Examples can be found to help you hit your goals and also to ensure that there are suitable benefits for all employees. Often we find that organisations have benefits, but it is just a small selection of staff using them. Often, most employees are using none of them, a few are using several.
This can actually be counterproductive, creating a sense that the benefits only exist to serve a select few, creating a wholly unintentional them and us situation.
What sort of benefits might you look to add?
Some add learning – this learning that is not related to the place of work. There can be the ability to sign up for courses on cookery, music and many more besides – if multiple staff members sign up it can even be a shared extracurricular activity.
Others introduce fertility benefits, helping those seeking to improve chances of becoming pregnant make huge savings against expensive treatments as part of a salary sacrifice. This sends a message that you really care for employee well-being.
When benefits are in place, the data can be monitored to see how many are using them – this of course without sharing personal information.
The idea of experimenting with benefits comes from a place of admitting that we cannot know everything that there is to know about all our employees. They have a life outside work, they have their own concerns and interests – these might be things we could not think of.
Only by constantly reviewing our workplace benefits can we ensure they are truly fit for all. Fit for all does not mean that anyone benefit is suitable for all, it means a package exists that includes at least one item that would be of benefit to everyone.
The benefits are huge to the employees. In terms of retention, motivation and appeal to new recruits, they can be every bit as large to the employer or organisation.

About Us

At Enjoy Benefits, we have great experience in helping companies of all sizes introduce benefits that are suitable for their workplace.
Benefits are easy to set up and ongoing administration is then run through a hub, this allowing employees to manage their own benefits while the employer can see which benefits are proving popular and what level of take-up each has had.
If you would like an obligation free chat to discuss which benefits might work for your business and your employees, please contact us by calling 0800 088 7315 or using our Contact Form.