All businesses must provide some employee benefits because the law requires them. However, if you want your small business to have the best talent you need to go beyond the mandatory basics. According to CBInsights, not having the right team is the third most common reason for small business failure. This means that attracting that best talent is essential for your company’s survival. As a small business, you might not be able to provide many ‘cool’ benefits, so you need to pick them wisely.
Top 4 Employee Benefits People Really Want to Get
1. Maternity/paternity leave
A paid maternity/paternity leave will not only endear you to your employees. It will ensure that you don’t lose valuable talent. Happy employees are productive employees, and people who know they are secure in their job while looking after a baby are also very loyal.
To make the best of it for your company, offer the employees on maternity/paternity leave to come back to work part-time. Better yet, create an opportunity for them to work from home. Make sure they know they can leave anytime to attend to any emergency and you’ll see that offering that long paid leave won’t actually lose you as much input from your valuable employees as you first thought.
Check out how the top businesses use a maternal/paternal leave package to keep their employees happy.
2. Healthcare plan
A healthcare plan usually ranks at the top of employee benefits surveys. This means that by offering this alone you boost your chances of attracting good and loyal talent. You can make the health plan your primary focus and advertise it with the vacancy.
Health plans are so valued because they aren’t easy to get. The majority of small businesses simply cannot afford to offer their employees much help with medical insurance. However, you can overcome this drawback if you use the best PEO. Compare the Professional Employer Organizations’ benefit packages to pick the one with a focus on health. This might not be the best deal for you, but it’s what your employees need most. Using a PEO to hire your employees will also reduce your taxes, so you’ll get more chances to offer a pay raise, another important attraction for employees.
3. Flexible hours
This benefit can cost you very little if you plan your work right. In fact, offering flexible hours can actually boost the overall business productivity. That’s because this system ensures your employees can work when they are in peak condition to do this.
You should also do your best to give your employees a chance to work remotely. This, combined with flexible hours, will attract more young talent. The active generations of today value their freedom greatly and will be more likely to consider working for you.
4. Student loan assistance
Student loans are a huge burden for the nation as a whole. Today, student debt in America reaches $1.5 trillion and it keeps growing with every year. Offering to relieve some of that burden will be an instant attention grabber for new talent.
You should consult a financial expert to work out a student loan help plan that your business can realistically provide. You will also need to revise that help every year depending on how your company is faring. But the more help you can give, even at a cost of cutting other benefits, the more chances you have to keep your top employees loyal to your company. It’s also an excellent motivational tool to encourage boosting business productivity.
