A Quick Guide To Employee Benefits And When You're Ready To Introduce Them

Starting and growing a successful business takes effort and sacrifice, and it depends on how you invest in your products, services and employees. Talented employees form the backbone of a business, so you need to make them feel important and motivated. The best way to motivate your employees is through good pay and employee benefits.

What are employee benefits?

Employee benefits are non-financial compensation or programs that a business offers its employees. These packages are mostly the services that your staff can't access on their own. Offering employees such perks makes them loyal and creates a healthy workplace.

Employee benefits small businesses can offer

Small businesses may not have the funds to support employee benefits offered by big and established companies. But that does not mean your small company cannot provide non-monetary perks. The following are some of the common small business employee benefits:

• Paid time off (PTO)
• Health insurance
• Disability insurance
• Retirement benefits
• Dental insurance
• Parental leave
• Vision insurance
• Travel benefits
• Gym membership deals

Why should I provide employee benefits to my small business staff?

The question of whether to introduce employee benefits when running a small business attracts divergent views. For one, these benefits can affect your company's financial stability, so you may want first to introduce financial-independent perks such as offering employee equity.

Another reason small businesses shy away from introducing employee benefits is the extra time and effort needed to administer these benefits. For instance, as an employer, you need to deduct amounts for the various benefits in every employee's account before releasing the salary. Despite the cons associated with introducing employee benefits in a small business, the pros make a program worthwhile.

The following are the reasons why offering employee benefits is a good idea:

Benefits help you attract talented employees

Most professionals don't consider only the pay when hunting for jobs. A job offer with good pay coupled with several employee benefits attracts talent and helps retain it. Offering your employees benefits such as retirement benefits gives them a feeling of job security.

In addition, programs such as paid time off and parental leave show your employees that you are concerned with their work-personal life balance. Health insurance that covers the employee and their dependents is attractive, especially to staff with families.

Benefits help maintain a healthy workforce

A healthy workforce translates into a more productive team. That's why it's advisable to offer health insurance, dental and vision benefits to your employees. Paid time off encourages employees to take their time to relax and rejuvenate. When workers are overworked with no time off, their productivity drops. If you don't offer paid leave, the employees may shy away from taking time off in fear of losing money on their paycheck.

Benefits help retain your employees

A good salary is not enough to convince your employee to stay. If you want to retain your employees, offer them irresistible benefits such as retirement benefits and workers' compensation. When your small business retains employees, customers have more confidence in your company. Long-term employees don't leave projects halfway through or leave clients in the wind.

Benefits help develop stronger morale and loyalty

Employee benefits improve workers' morale and work drive. Showing a worker you care about their well-being highly motivates them and retains their loyalty to you and your company.

When is a small business ready to introduce employee benefits?

A small business is ready to introduce employee benefits when it can afford to do so without incurring substantial losses.

Other instances that may require a small business to introduce benefit packages include:

• More than 50 employees: The Affordable Care Act authorizes small businesses with 50-plus full-time employees to offer them health insurance. Failure to do so may attract fines of up to $100,000.
• Employees leave for better job offers: Do you suspect your best talent is leaving your company due to a lack of employee benefits? Even if you are on a tight budget, offer common benefits such as health insurance, which may convince the employees to stay with your company.

Final thoughts

It takes more than a living wage or salary to keep good talent in your small business, especially when competing with larger, already established businesses. Introducing employee benefits helps attract and retain employees. The perks will also motivate your staff, therefore, increasing productivity.