Hello I have just joined a medium sized business (about 170 employees) and we are in the process of reviewing our benefit offering.
I am wondering what other SMEs do for their benefits and whether there are some benefits that would be considered absolutely essential (for e.g from a duty of care perspective I am concerned that we don't have an Employee Assist Programme).
I come from large corporate background which had a cafeteria style benefit offering including group income protection, life insurance, Employee Assist Programmes, medical, cycle to work etc. The benefits at my new company are more extrinsic in nature, e.g really nice offices to work in, free breakfasts, fruit. We are in the process of getting feedback on what benefits our employees would value however I wonder if there is an affordable way for SMEs to 'buy' into the benefit offerings more typically offered by bigger corporations.
Any pointers would be welcome
Many thanks
Elizabeth
Replies
Hi Elizabeth
Sounds really interesting I have worked for both small employers circa 200 and large corporate. I agree that sometime a small employer can give benefits in terms of flexibility etc. We also had a basic flexible benefits system as a small employer which was very popular with employees especially buying and selling holidays, enhanced sick pay and also a small pensions contribution albeit that will be met under the employer's AE obligations.
Healthcare was also popular, and also for family members and of course as Becky says childcare vouchers. In my current business as I am a micro employer I tend to offer flexible working, free fruit and diet coke and also regular team outings for pizza and wine! I have not formalised this into a system but will probably need to do so at some point!
I hope this helps
Sarah
Hi Elizabeth,
I work for a group of companies - collectively a similar size to your firm (c150 employees). We did a benefits review at the beginning of this year, which was off the back of our annual employee satisfaction survey where the benefits offering was one of the lowest rated sections - the holiday entitlement seemed to be the main issue that was mentioned.
Prior to April 2015 our only 'benefits' were 20 days holiday (+ BH), childcare vouchers, free parking and....that was pretty much it! We have since introduced increasing holiday entitlement (1 day per year to a max of 25), SimplyHealth Cash Plan after 1 years service, financial support for professional studies after 1 years' service and a car sharing incentive scheme (as parking is an issue on site). We are only introducing pensions as the staging date comes around for each company in the group (at the moment only 2 of the 4 companies are auto-enrolled). There is an EAP element to the SimplyHealth plan, but we don't have anything like that for all employees. We also don't have anything such as life insurance/income protection, etc.
The benefits that we've introduced don't really cost the company that much in the grand scheme of things so it was a fairly easy sell to the Board, however it makes the list a bit longer and so more appealing to current and potential employees.
I'm going to be doing another employee survey shortly and will be asking more targeted questions this time about our benefits offering, along with giving some examples of additional benefits to see how many people show an interest. One thing I'm considering proposing is making the eligibility for the benefits 6 months, rather than a year.
I've only ever really worked for SMEs and this seems to be the norm (although that's just my experience!). I guess it really comes down to what the employees want and will value, along with what budget the company are prepared to allocate to employee benefits.
Hope that helps.
Many thanks
Becky
Thanks Becky, that is really useful. I appreciate your comments.