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What Do Employees Expect in a Benefits Package Today?

Written by David Peasall, VP, Human Resources | Jan 19, 2016 3:30:14 PM

 

As many employers know, monetary compensation is vitally important to employees, and their expectations don’t end there.

More than three-quarters of employees state that a benefits package is important in their decision to accept or decline a job.

 However, for employers, concerns about costs, changing regulations and compliance issues may sometimes hinder enthusiasm about offering benefits programs.

PEOs offer benefits solutions that meet employee expectations while making them easily accessible, affordable, and simple to administer for employers.

The Importance of Health Insurance Benefits

A comprehensive benefits package can include such benefits as: health care, retirement savings and planning, flexible spending accounts, paid time off, and professional career development benefits.

Combining company policies for paid time off and career development programs with benefits available through a PEO can be an effective approach for many businesses.

In a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute study, they discovered that 88% of workers overwhelmingly found health insurance benefits to be far more important than any other workplace benefit. In 2015 employee benefits were placed in the following order of most important:

In planning for the selection of a health insurance plan for your employees, consider the following questions. Your answers to these questions can help guide your decision to administer a plan yourself, or use a PEO to secure and/or administer a plan for you: 
  • How much am I willing to spend each year? (Tax deductible as corporation expense)
  • What type of health plans am I willing to put in place?
  • What carriers are available in my location or locations of employees?
  • Am I going to contribute towards my employees dependents?
  • Am I going to consider a group health plan under a PEO?
  • Do I want to be responsible for filing Form 5500 and maintaining Plan documents?
  • Who is going to handle the administration of the benefits?
  • Who will be reconciling the monthly invoice?

Voluntary Benefits

Voluntary Benefits (benefits which employees can elect directly without formal employer sponsorship) can easily be offered by an employer through its PEO and paid for partially or solely by the employees through payroll deductions.

Employees see the advantage of purchasing voluntary benefits through their employer since the premiums can be much lower than purchasing the benefits on their own.

This enables employers to offer many benefits without any of the time consuming tasks to secure and administer them.

For example, FrankCrum’s voluntary benefits include dental, vision, life, disability, critical-illness and accident insurance as well as Employee Assistance Program (EAP), ID theft protection, legal services, entertainment discounts, auto insurance discounts, credit union access, and even pet coverage.

Utilizing a PEO can broaden your employee benefits package to assist in retaining and recruiting valuable employees. No need to hire or put the burden on your Human Resources manager to put together a complete benefits package. Use FrankCrum.