So you’ve decided to introduce flexible employee benefits. This is a great move for many workplaces. More and more employees are asking to choose their benefits, but only some organizations are actually offering this flexibility. As a result, giving your employees more choice can make your benefits strategy stand out from the pack, driving more candidates to your business.
Why Flexible Employee Benefits?
There are a lot of reasons to add flexibility to your benefits strategy. Your benefits are one of the key factors that candidates consider when looking at a new job, and one of the elements that will keep employees at your business for the long run. Better benefits amount to higher levels of job satisfaction, retention, and stronger company culture.
Here’s your step-by-step guide to implementing flexible fringe benefits.
Evaluate Your Current Benefits
Start off by making sure you understand the value of the benefits you already offer. This should go farther than just looking at the benefits themselves. You’ll also want to see how these benefits stack up against the competition.
To do this, review the benefits that other local businesses offer. Are your benefits competitive when you look at them in comparison? Evaluate the actual value of your benefits package so you have a baseline for comparison. Healthcare facilities often have very extensive benefits, so understanding the competition is especially important.
At this point, you should also ask for input from your employees. Use an anonymous survey or a focus group to understand what workers like and dislike about your current benefits strategy. This may include the benefits you offer, but it may also have to do with your communication and enrollment processes. This also provides you with a good opportunity to answer any lingering questions your employees might have about your current and future benefits strategy.
Design Your Benefits Strategy In-House Or Outsource It
You have a couple of options as you plan your updated benefits strategy. You can either create a new strategy in-house, with input from your HR team, or you can outsource your strategy to a consultant. In either case, you’ll need some budget upfront to get your new strategy rolling.
During this step, you’ll make a lot of decisions about your new benefits strategy. You’ll decide what kind of benefits to offer, what benefits suppliers you’ll use, how you’ll roll them out to your team, and how employees can enroll. If this is the first time you’re offering flexible options in your benefits package, you’ll need to be extremely communicative with your employees to make sure they understand the steps to accessing these perks.
Create Your Benefits Menu
After you’ve settled on the broad categories of benefits you’ll be offering, it’s time to settle on specifics. Find out what benefits employees want (this could be a part of your earlier survey). Couple this with what you can reasonably offer, and your benefits menu will start to take shape.
There are lots of benefits your employees might request. Some popular flexible options include educational, financial, and wellness benefits. You might offer help with student loan payments, tuition, daycare, commuting, travel, or adoption. Benefits can also focus on giving your employees more power over their schedules. For instance, you might let employees opt into shift bidding, extra holidays, or shorter workdays.
Introduce New Offerings to Your Employees
Make sure managers understand the new flexible offerings before you officially launch them. This will give them a chance to get their teams warmed up to the idea so employees have time to ask questions. Just be clear when these new benefits will actually become available to avoid confusion.
Touch on these new benefit options at team meetings. Once the benefits actually launch, you may want to hold a meeting or an event specifically to celebrate and review the new options. Then, in the enrollment period, follow up directly with employees who haven’t yet signed up. You’ve done all this work for a reason—now you just have to make sure employees are taking advantage of the new benefits strategy.
Review Regularly
Don’t just set and forget your benefits package. Review your benefits strategy at regular intervals to track your progress. Verify that employees are enrolled and generally satisfied with their options.
Even if your benefits stay the same, your employees’ lives are constantly changing. That’s why regularly reviewing your benefits is so important—your workforce and the world are both evolving. As older employees retire and younger ones start jobs, different benefits are in demand. Likewise, demand is affected by political, social, and economic change. Keep abreast of what factors are affecting your workers. The easiest way to do this is by inviting them into the conversation.
Better Healthcare Staffing With Apploi
No matter what your benefits strategy looks like, Apploi is here to simplify your healthcare staffing. We help employers source candidates, streamline hiring, and onboard new recruits. Hire painlessly to make a great impression on new applicants.
Interested in learning more about how you can recruit, hire, and onboard healthcare staff quickly? Contact us today for a free demo of our end-to-end talent management solution.
