Great Expectations: Employee Benefits In Attracting Talent
Attracting top, talented individuals is becoming increasingly complex and challenging. Business leaders are having to jostle for position and constantly seek new ways of gaining a competitive advantage. So, if you’re struggling to attract the brightest talent, you’re not alone.
But, fear not, we have the solution – market-leading employee benefits.
Employee benefits can play a critical role in attracting and onboarding talent, but at the moment, businesses are failing to match employee expectations. We found that 65% of employees believe improvements are needed to their current benefits programme.
Solving this is vital, as 38% of employees say the benefits scheme outlined was crucial to them accepting a job offer. This rises to 51% for employees aged from 16 to 24.
Fortunately, in this article, we’ve got you covered. We’ll explore why attracting top talent is more important than ever and share helpful tips on how employee benefits can play a pivotal role in a company’s recruitment drive.
Why is it important to attract top talent?
With increased global competition, evolving employee expectations and a boom in remote working, your business needs to work harder to attract high-performing professionals. In doing so, you’ll benefit from:
- Fresh ideas and perspectives
- Increased innovation and creativity
- Enhanced productivity and performance
- Success, resilience and adaptability
Put simply, failure to prioritise talent acquisition and retention will mean your business gets left behind.
This is where a strong, bespoke employee benefits package comes into play, aligning with the varied needs and expectations of your workforce. By demonstrating that your company values its employees, you can distinguish yourself from the competition and unlock long-term growth and stability.
Understanding what employees want
Before you start curating the perfect employee benefits package to enhance your hiring campaign, it’s important to recognise what employees want.
Worryingly, 47% of employees say leaders at their business don’t truly understand what the workforce wants from rewards. This indicates that the time for action is now.
Here are some things to consider.
Firstly, you need to understand the current challenges impacting employees, both inside and outside the workplace. At the moment, 19% of employees say they don’t feel benefits, rewards and recognition at their workplace meet their personal or professional needs.
- Rising inflation: The UK continues to experience increasing costs, leading to rising financial pressure and salaries not stretching as far.
- Cost of living: Affording the essentials – food, transport, housing – is increasingly difficult, especially for low-income individuals.
- Work-life balance: Many people struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance, which negatively affects personal relationships and contributes to stress.
- Mental health and wellbeing: Mental health issues in the UK workforce remain an issue, with 79% of employees experiencing moderate-to-high stress levels.
Challenges Employees Face
46% of employees feel their company’s benefits, rewards and recognition programme aligns with their personal values and aspirations.
- Job satisfaction: Employees want to enjoy their roles as part of a positive workplace culture. Their job should align with their skills and interests.
- Growth and development: Opportunities for career progression, upskilling and personal development are highly valued.
- Diversity and inclusion: Workplaces must cater to a range of backgrounds, perspectives and identities.
- Recognition: Employees want to feel appreciated for their contributions through regular praise, awards and rewards.
- Flexibility: The freedom to balance personal and professional responsibilities, with flexible working arrangements and wellbeing support.
what employees value
Tips to attract top talent using employee benefits
Good news – once you’ve figured out what employees want, you can start to tailor your benefits programme towards them to attract and retain top industry talent.
Here are our top tips for using your employee benefits to build a workforce of high-performing individuals.
1. Recognition schemes that appreciate excellence
A business that actively recognises and rewards its employees demonstrates a positive, supportive workplace. Prospective and existing employees need so much more than a salary, wanting to feel genuinely respected, valued and have a strong sense of purpose at work.
Unfortunately, not many employers are doing a good job of this, with 52% of employees claiming that they frequently felt their efforts went unrecognised in the past 12 months.
Strong recognition and reward schemes, such as peer-to-peer recognition, milestone awards and personalised rewards, will make your business appealing in competitive job markets and ensure you recognise excellence.
2. Flexible working arrangements to promote a work-life balance
Employees now demand greater control over how, when and where their work gets done. In doing so, they can better manage personal responsibilities while performing their roles to a higher standard.
Not only does flexibility show a company respects and trusts employees, but it also demonstrates its commitment to individuals. This leads to improved wellbeing and a work-life balance.
Worryingly, 26% of employees say their company offers workplace benefits only, which are not appropriate for their remote working pattern, or express disappointment that benefits are not available to their family members. So there’s a real opportunity for your business to address these issues.
3. Create broad but relevant offerings
Our Beyond the Salary Slip whitepaper found that 38% of employees were attracted to their roles by the benefits on offer, and 65% want improvements, which is why offering a wide array of benefits is crucial.
Your employee benefits package must align with the diverse needs and expectations of the wider workforce, ensuring it features both financial incentives and practical perks. It must be tailored to candidates’ needs.
Considering the themes in the ‘Understand what employees want’ section of this article will help to work out what’s valuable for employees at the moment.
4. Personalised benefits tailored to individual needs
Employees really value a tailored approach to employee benefits, and it’s often the case that the best talent has higher expectations. So, you’ll need to demonstrate to a prospective employee that your benefits scheme is flexible and can cater to their needs.
Personalising your offering to ensure it matches diverse lifestyles and requirements means that employees can engage with benefits that can actually make a difference in their lives, thereby increasing the perceived value.
Examples may include: customised learning and development, financial wellbeing options and parental and caregiving support.
5. Demonstrate continuous engagement and communication
The fact that more than one in five (21%) employees say they don’t understand their employee benefits programme well suggests that businesses need to communicate better.
That’s why it’s essential that your employee benefits form a key part of the hiring and onboarding communications, so new starters are well aware of what they have access to, how they access their benefits and, importantly, the personal value they can get from them!
But beyond that, ongoing communication is just as important so employees are regularly reminded about the benefits on offer to them. That’s why partnering with a provider that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you in terms of promoting your offering is useful. They’ll be able to support with a range of engagement-boosting comms that cover a range of channels, including promotional emails, branded assets, push notifications and more!
How Boostworks can help
Hopefully, with the help of this guide, you can appreciate the massive role employee benefits play in attracting talent. Currently, there’s a significant gap between what employees are attracted to when they join a company and their actual experiences with benefits, so it’s down to you to close this gap.
That’s where we come in!
Using our decades of experience, we’ll create a tailored benefits package that’ll enhance your recruitment drive and ensure you attract the brightest talent within your industry.
Keen to get going? Book a chat with one of our experts and start welcoming game-changing employees through your doors.
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