Job benefits like health insurance and retirement have been a staple of the American job market for a long time now. But as physical and mental health have been brought front and center with the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are finding that their employees are paying more attention than ever when it comes to the benefits you offer as an employer. Finding the right benefits package and provider to meet the needs of the talent you need to run your business is more important than ever. So is administering them in a way that is efficient and engaging.
The type of benefits a company may offer can be wide-ranging. From health insurance and 401k’s, to dog walking, dry cleaning service, and even hams for the holidays, there are a huge range of potential benefits that employers can offer. It is important not to be dazzled by the array of benefits, but to really ask your employees and your organization, what are the benefits the talent we need to run our business are really looking for? Are your employees in one geographic location? Do you employees largely one demographic group or does your talent span 4 or 5 generations? Answering these questions, and finding benefits partners that can help you offer a wide range of benefits to your employees while still meeting cost objectives is the key to effective benefits administration.
When looking at what benefits you should be looking at, it may be useful to consider the following model recently published by Aspect43.
Are you covering benefits that impact physical health such as medical, dental, and vision insurance? Are you supporting nutrition and fitness among employees? Do you support financial benefits like 401k’s or other retirement benefits? What about the ability to support emerging benefits like earned wage access? And when it comes to your employee’s emotional and mental health, does your insurance cover behavioral health and mental well-being programs? And most importantly, does your benefit offering match your organization’s values?
The point is not to offer benefits under the sun – which would likely be too costly anyway – but to find partners that let you choose the right range of benefits to offer to your employees while keeping the administrative complexity to a minimum. Strong benefits admin balances the absolute need for compliance and accuracy with an experience that employees find useful, simple, and positive. Making sure that your enrollment process, both initially and during open enrollment is helpful, not a distraction, is important. So is helping individuals going through life events that may trigger a benefits change. The key is for your organization to find the right fit with a benefits partner, so you can help your employees find the right fit within your organization.