Employee Benefits

[belinda]

Morning All,

I would like to start looking at Employee Benefits we can offer our employees, that of course will not cost the company any money (if possible).
Can anyone provide me with any ideas/links etc on employee benefits that we can provide employees.

Thanks

[michaelakassar]

Hi Belinda,

Unfortunately most benefits will incur some costs, however you might want to investigate the following:

Purchased Leave: Under this scheme, the employee is paid for 48 instead of 52 weeks in the year.

In return for this, they have their normal 4 weeks Annual Leave per year, plus 4 weeks pre approved Leave without Pay. This gives them a total of 8 week's leave per year.

Deferred Salary: Under this scheme, the employee is paid 80% of their salary so they can take one full year of paid leave upon completion of their fourth year of service.

You also might like to try changing your Bereavement Leave so that the employee is automatically entitled to 3 days of Sick Leave on the death of a family member in addition to the 2 days Bereavement Leave, as it usually takes most of us 1 week to arrange funerals etc before returning to work (most are not really fit for work during this time anyway).

To ensure these are implemented properly you need to ensure your policies/procedures are updated to reflect these new conditions. Make sure that your policies spell out all terms and conditions. Additionally, you will need to get your employees to sign a form in order to join the 1st 2 schemes, as the employee will be sacrificing part of their salary.

Hope this helps.



Cheers
Michaela

[kevinh]

The most welcomed benefits or concessions I know of are flexibility in working hours and the ability to work from home. It's not an easy thing to implement but you will end up with much happier and possibly more productive employees.

The snag is you need to have the right people on board who will use this in a mature responsible way.

Regards,
Kevin

[lukohr]

Hi Belinda,

Employee benefit is one vital motivational factor for all employees.. there are many type of benefits.. as like michaelakassar said Benefits incur few cost.. Leave, Salary, Work envrionment and many more..
first let we know what is your type of business, what are the group of employees, total number of workforce..

from that we can give some worthy tips..

thank y.

[belinda]

Thanks everyone for the tips so far.
The company I work for is a Engineering/Manufacturing company, and range from Software Engineers (lots of IT people) Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Supervisor and Leading hand on the shop floor and back office related positions. We have approx 100 employees.

[Stephanie1979]

Hi Belinda

Try contacting some of the Private Health Insurance providers - some offer lower private health insurance rates for corporate members - initially it takes some time to set up but the relationship is between the employee and the insurance agent (no payroll deductions are necessary) - employee benefits by getting cheaper health insurance.

Another option - do you have a corporate travel agent that you book your travel through - quite often they will have a staff leisure travel offer ie: cheaper accomodation, flights.

Hope that helps.
Steph

[michaelakassar]

Hi Belinda,

Here are a coupe more suggestions for your employee benefits.

At my organisation we have just brought in a Christmas Savings Club, where people can nominate a specific amout of money each pay to put away until Christmas.

The other thing I have implemented is an Employee Assistance Program, where employees get 6 counselling sessions free per year at the cost of the organisation (we pay $100 per session). Any additional sessions are paid for by the employee.

Make sure you shop around, as I found that the prices vary enormously between service providers. At the end I chose Reationships Australia, as they charge ony a small yearly admin fee (about $500 I think), and that meets all our needs, incuding monthly reports. They are also a not for profit org and the people there are very easy to deal with.

Hope this helps.


Cheers
Michaela

[Moz]

Originally Posted by michaelakassar

The other thing I have implemented is an Employee Assistance Program, where employees get 6 counselling sessions free per year at the cost of the organisation (we pay $100 per session). Any additional sessions are paid for by the employee.

Michaela

Michaela, what sort of counselling?

Moz.

[michaelakassar]

Hi Moz,

My apologies for not clarifying my earlier post.

An Employee Assistance Program provides counselling to employees if they are experiencing difficulties in either their personal or professional lives.

Issues can include but are not limited to relationships, parenting, family matters, drug/alcohol issues, grief etc. Sometimes workers may wish to go to counselling if they have work issues but want to speak to a third party.

When an employee wishes to use the service they ring the counselling provider to make an appointment. As the service is confidential they are not required to advise their employer.

There may also be situations where a manager feels that a worker may be experiencing problems that are affecting work performance, and therefore can inform them about the service. However you need to be extremely careful here, as the employee may not feel comfortable with this approach.

The service provider should give you statistics each month so you know how many people are using the service, and in some cases, which locations.

Employee Assistance Programs can be very beneficial, as they provide the opportunity to seek assistance from a qualified person in a descrete manner. The organisation can also benefit as the employee's issues will have a lesser impact on work, as they are given appropriate strategies to manage them. Additionally, employees feel that the organisation is looking after their well being by providing the service in the first place.

Hope this helps.


Cheers
Michaela

[lukohr]

Belinda,

While seeing your post it shows majority of your company's workforce is Software Engineers, for such type of employee group you can provide as like EAP (Michaela opinion), Introducing Employee Referral Bonus scheme, Some organisation provides benefits like Physical and mental fit classes (Meditation, Yoga, Physical warm-up, Stress Management classes).

Many people offering discounts while your employees representing through your company name in the way of Corporate concessions like Holiday pack, Medical Insurance, other recreational centre like fitness centre, Swimming pool, Café etc. for that you need to have a discussion with such providers.

Some company provide Interest Free Loan for some important days like Christmas, that fixed amount will be deducted as equal instalments from their payments (need to be more careful from some employees who will avail the loan and quit with out repayment, for this you provide only for eligible employees whose settlement is with employer like leave encashment, etc)

Most of the IT professionals will update their skills by doing some Certification tests from Oracle / Sun etc. for those examinations they need to pay fees. In such case if they go through employer referral they will get discount in their examination fees. It’s surely helpful for IT professional employees. Moreover you no need to spend a single $ for this. Only need to go and speak to particular test centres with your company letter.

All the best Belinda.

[rozza23]

Hi Belinda,

here are some suggestions, I hope these are still relevant, as this was posted almost a year ago...

I came across this link which talks about the psychology of employee motivation, its a great article that talks about little things you can do to motivate your employees for free The Psychology of Employee Motivation

You can set up an Employee Benefits group online at Myzerr.com. Similar to Facebook, it is a social network for discounts and is free. The idea is that you invite local businesses to give discounts to your employees. It is easy to use and all the tools are there to help you set it up.
Myzerr

hope this helps,

Roee

[belinda]

It is never too late for a response for Employee Benefits. I will have a look at the websites you suggested. Thanks

[AlexT]

Excellent lot of information here - many thanks to everyone for their contribution. I think for smaller employers it is even more important to offer extra benefits as they often can't afford to compete on salary with the bigger guys.