Many companies are under the false impression that the more benefits they offer their employees the happier they are. However, the increasing cost of healthcare, compensation, and training has companies re-evaluating their total benefit packages.
Hewitt Associates, a consulting firm in Lincolnshire, Illinois, has an online tool that companies can use to survey their employees. Results from recent surveys have shown that corporate America must continually prove to their stakeholders that the increasing cost of benefits is worth it. It has also shown that the difference between what companies spend on benefits and how employees value those benefits is growing larger every year. For example, many employees have responded to surveys indicating compensation is more important than health care benefits. Some are willing to trade compensation increases for restricted stock and/or bonuses.
Any company who surveys its employees must be willing to make changes to their overall benefit packages in response to the survey. By completing the survey, workers will have a perception that the company is agreeable to overhaul their benefits.
Another option that is becoming popular is to tell employees what their overall benefit package is worth and let them choose where they want those dollars spent. This may prove beneficial to companies by saving costs on skyrocketing healthcare.
Companies are looking to more effectively budget and spend their benefits dollars while keeping their employees happy. Trade-offs may be the best way to accomplish that.