Benefits…under the “hood”

Working in the field of employee group benefits, you learn a lot about a company, what drives and motivates them simply by reading their benefit booklet. How a company decides (or doesn’t) to align the benefit program with their corporate culture, compensation, productivity, safety, and wellness of the people—the talent—behind the success, says more than any financial statement or Google review.

Is it a checked box

It’s true, benefits can be complicated, especially when a business ends up working with a general practitioner or someone not dedicated to the servicing of the plan they place, and they choose an “out-of-the-box” plan so a company can tell  their employees that they offer a plan. Yet, they lack the knowledge of the coverage and how best to communicate that to their staff members for effective administration and engagement.

Benefits are the unknown in talent acquisition

Consider the last job posting you read or responded to. The knowns include:

·      Job and for whom

·      Talent requirement

·      Experience and performance measures

·      Hours of work expected

·      Salary range

What isn’t known are the benefits. Sure, it’s listed, but it is completely unknown to the job applicants and typically, those doing the hiring can speak very little to it as well. That’s a shame and a reflection on the broker/consultant servicing that client. It shows a significant lack of planned education. 

Is a great plan a $500 annual health spending account? Or perhaps a fully insured plan which includes $250 of vision care coverage every 24-months? How about the plan that includes both short and long-term disability?

How do you know?

Whether there is an existing plan in place, or starting fresh, the first steps would be to look at the people who will be using the program and what the business would like the plan to achieve. Quite obviously we want the benefit plan to attract and retain top talent. But wouldn’t it be nice if the plan could also promote productivity and add to the safety and health of the organization?

Well, it can.

Healthy employees are safe employees

A well thought out, strategically implemented plan will usually include fully insured items, employee assistance, self-insured health spending or administrative services only, and perhaps a personal (otherwise known as a wellness) spending account, as well as retirement options.

The difference between a health spending and personal spending account is the taxation rules, which impacts WHAT can be claimed. For instance, a health spending would be items generally falling under pharmacy, health, vision, and dental, whereby a personal spending account will allow claims for gym memberships, sporting equipment and the like.

This kind of comprehensive coverage exhibits the company’s commitment to understanding and supporting the employees they have attracted, signally their intention to retain their staff for the long term. It is the employees who speak the volume of what it is to work within an organization and that always transmits out to the clients.

Personal Spending Accounts

Often overlooked is the strategic use of a personal spending account in training and development of staff. Because a personal spending account offers an easy way to track and measure benefits to employees, so too can it be used for items typically already provided to the employee, but often not tracked for marketing value of being part of the benefit plan. Items like:

·       Vitamins and supplements

·       Meditation

·       Cosmetic treatments

·       Parking permits

·       Camping fees

·       Elder care

·       Veterinary 

·       Legal

·       Childcare

And who wouldn’t want to work for such a company whose benefit plan actively promotes work-life balance, as well as making the employee better able to perform their job with real engagement.

We’d be pleased to engage in a meaningful conversation on this and other benefit topics. Give us a call. 

Note: this was written without the aid of Artificial Intelligence (AI)