Comp & bens | Which benefits do staff value the most?

Various studies have evidenced that making employees feel valued and appreciated at work has a profound impact not just on wellbeing – although this is obviously an essential element of these initiatives – but also on retention, talent attraction, quality of work produced, sickness absence and as such, the bottom line.

For example, staff who feel that their company keeps their wellbeing at the core of its function are 70% less likely to search for a new position elsewhere, according to Deloitte's research. That means less turnover, less recruitment, and onboarding costs and more knowledge retained inside of the company, whilst 84% of employees who believe that their company listens to their concerns feel a high level of job satisfaction, according to Officevibe statistics.

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Traditionally, companies may have presumed, wrongly, that simply increasing pay guarantees the loyalty and wellbeing of its valued staff, yet what matters most to employees isn’t money. Actually, studies such as one titled Compensation and Benefits Data You Should Know from OfficeVibe stated that what employees value more than anything else is the ability to manage their lives around work, and consider the two elements more intertwined than is traditionally perceived. People don’t want to simply withstand a workplace that they dislike and save their joy and wellbeing for non-work hours; in the modern workplace, enjoyment, purpose, and welfare need to come from both inside and outside of the corporate sphere.

This, of course, falls under the remit of HR and as studies such as the aforementioned OfficeVibe statistics confirmed, the most essential factor for achieving this for many is a strong compensation and benefits package. The study revealed that a massive 80% of workers said that they’d rather have strong benefits over a pay increase. When respondents are narrowed down to those in the Millennial generation, that number jumps to 90%. Yet the same study stated that just 65% of employees were actually satisfied with the benefits that their company offered.