Benefits can help your small business attract — and keep — smart,
talented, and reliable employees. But
many entrepreneurs worry that offering substantial perks can cut into their
relatively modest earnings.
“It’s a nasty choice: Offer juicy benefits
and forgo profits, or cut back on bennies and risk losing your best employees,”
notes Forbes.com’s Maureen Farrell, who asked experts in the field to define
a well-balanced
benefits package for small businesses. “The
general consensus: To attract talent and compete effectively, entrepreneurs
should offer health insurance, some life and disability insurance, and probably
a retirement savings plan.”
But why stop there? Here are some additional
ways you can increase the pull of your benefits package without bleeding your company dry.
1. Add wellness and HRA programs to your
health benefits. Many employers offer health insurance,
ranging from providing HMO or PPO coverage to help covering dental work and
prescription drug costs. You can make your health care benefits significantly
more attractive by adding wellness and reimbursement components.
Wellness offerings tend to reduce an employer’s
health insurance expenses because they
encourage and incentivize employees to take better care of themselves. Consider
starting a program that helps staff members quit smoking, improve their diet
and nutrition, increase their physical fitness, or seek counseling on ways to
boost their overall well-being.
Another appealing benefit your company can
offer is a Health
Reimbursement Account. HRAs have no required minimums or maximums,
and let business owners provide each employee with additional money (pre-tax
for the employer, separate from and in addition to regular salary for the
employee) to reimburse the employee for eligible health care expenses. (Tip:
You can do this easily and inexpensively with the Intuit Health Debit Card.)
2. Add investment advice to your retirement
package. Most employees recognize the importance
of saving for their retirement. The trend currently favors defined contribution plans and 401(k) savings
accounts. Some employers match each employee’s contributions, too, but
this isn’t necessary.
Your small business can rise above the rest
by supplementing these benefits with inexpensive but important extras, such as
professional investment advice and assistance. Today, these services can
be delivered online or in person and augmented by retirement readiness information and counseling.
3. Extend flex-time to telecommuting and
compressed schedules. More than 85 percent of
all U.S. companies now allow employees to sidestep the standard
five-day, 40-hour workweek and put in their time more flexibly. Flex-time programs typically specify certain hours or
days when every employee must be at the office and allow them to put in their
remaining time whenever they’d like.
Beyond offering flex-time, you could offer
employees the option of compressed
schedules. Most commonly, this allows employees to log
their standard 40 hours by working 10 hours a day for four days (or 13 hours a
day for three days). This essentially results in longer weekends, which is a
huge plus for some people, and helps the employer by making the job attractive to
larger numbers of qualified people.
Telecommuting offers additional flexibility to your employees. By
allowing staff to work some days or hours at or near home, without physically
traveling to your business’s premises, you may have greater leverage in wooing
top talent.
Only about 3.1 million employees consider
themselves fulltime tele-commuters, according to Global Workplace
Analytics. Nevertheless, eliminating just one
day’s round-trip commute from each workweek can make a job more attractive and satisfying.
4. Support cross-training and professional
development. Many employers recognize the advantages
of helping employees pay for professional memberships, off-site conferences,
training opportunities, or specialty certifications.
To one-up other companies, offer
reimbursement for a wider range of skills, for comprehensive cross-training,
and even for mentorship programs. These relatively inexpensive benefits allow
your employees to pursue their interests and feel more satisfied in their
careers while making themselves even more valuable to your business.
About Robert Moskowitz
Robert Moskowitz is an Emmy-winning author and editor with a knack
for conveying complex and difficult topics in a friendly, down-to-earth style.
Source:www.intuit.com