Employee benefits has been top of HR’s list of priorities in recent years. As employees are increasingly taking charge of their well-being at work, employers and HR are starting to come up with innovative and unique benefits to keep their workforce engaged and productive.
An in-house masseur? Checked. Unlimited childcare leave? Checked. Paid adoption care leave? Checked. The slew of benefits that companies are coming up with today are almost close to “astounding”.
However, as companies come up increasingly “out of this world” benefits to “lure” employees, you as an employee need to be able to identify which benefits actually work for you.
Here are some strategies to evaluate which benefits are the ones that will ultimately benefit you.
PRIORITISE YOUR EXISTING AND FUTURE NEEDS
Rank your top five priorities given your current situation and within the next five years in order of importance. Does that daily free lunch sounds appealing? Or would you rather a company that offers a comprehensive healthcare benefit that even covers healthcare costs due to a nut allergy reaction.
For instance, one unique benefit that was offered by a company (check) was egg freezing. However, as generous as this benefit might sound, does it really apply to you? Setting your priorities help you to sieve out which benefits are truly beneficial to you when the interviewing manager and HR attempts to wow you with their slew of unique and seemingly generous benefits.
EYE ON THE CASH
While companies might be throwing out benefits that seem generous, could they actually be compromising on your compensation package such as base salary? In order to keep fixed costs low, such as employees’ salaries, companies might spend money to offer a wide array of benefits instead, whereby companies are able to control these costs depending on employees’ ultilisation rates.
Instead of simply focusing on the upside of having a wide array of benefits, do not forgot the cash component and ensure that you are still compensated at the market rate.
GET THE LOWDOWN
Suppose you interview at a job and find out that the company has an unlimited annual leave policy for employees. Sounds like a golden ticket to a stress-free workplace? Or perhaps not. In reality, how much of these unlimited leave days do employees at the company really ultilise?
According to research conducted by Sage Business Researcher, it found that 72% of employees at a marketing automation company, Salesfusion, started taking fewer vacation days off after the company implemented an unlimited leave policy. Sure, employees might have the option to take unlimited annual leave days, but do the employees in the firm actually use it? More often than not, employees tend to not take that many leave days for fear of creating the impression that they are skiving on the job.
The best way to fully understand the “impressive” benefits that a company offers is to request for more information before accepting the job. It could be from the employee’s handbook or a brochure but the additional information could help you make an informed decision as to whether a particular “fancy” benefit truly works for you or not.
As the saying goes, not all that glitters is gold. While some benefits are no doubt attractive, the only ones worth getting excited about are the benefits that you will eventually use.
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