Appreciating Employee Benefits

Helping employees to appreciate the benefits your company offers can result in happier employees who want to stay at their job. You can accomplish this with consistent and informative communications.

Communicate Costs
Employee compensation is more than hourly wages or a salary. It also includes employee benefits, and they can combine with salary to create impressive compensation. According to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, total compensation averaged $35.87 per hour worked in December 2017, of which benefit costs averaged $11.38.

Communicate Appropriately
Cost is just one fact you might communicate to your employees. Consider promoting other aspects, such as financial incentives to participate in a wellness program.
Your give and take with employees should involve multiple delivery vehicles, because different people receive messages most clearly in different ways. Older employees, for example, may feel most comfortable hearing about benefits from a human resources person, while Millennials may feel most comfortable getting information online through an employee portal or sent to their smart devices.

Communicate Through Tools
Interactive tools may also prove helpful in communicating not only value, but specific benefits. You might offer through a provider an online tool that calculates your out-of-pocket costs for certain medical procedures. Or your company might direct employees to a calculator, which can tell them, for example, how much an extra 1% contributed to a 401(k) plan can help a retirement account grow.

Benefits communication shouldn’t begin and end at open enrollment, either, but continue throughout the year. Only when your employees really understand their benefits can they fully appreciate them.