The Advantages of Having an Effective Employee Benefits Scheme

Watch our video about Employee Benefits

You may have seen this in the news last week, but Scottish employment is at an all time high and unemployment is at it’s lowest rate in 25 years.  All good news for people looking for work. However, it does create a challenge for employers as there are many reports confirming a skills shortage. We want to give you some crucial employee benefits advice to retain your team.

We are seeing the time to recruit people taking longer across many of our clients. This is due to the fact less people looking for work. People are also being selective about who they want to work with.

A few of our clients are also finding it difficult to retain staff, as people are moving on for various reasons. This can include better or more flexible benefits.

As an SME business, you might think it’s just the big corporates who offer employee benefits.  However, there’s a lot you could be doing and these don’t have to be overly costly.  I wanted to share some ideas on what you could be doing in your business.

You’ll probably already comply with the auto-enrolment pension legislation, and this is one benefit you are offering.  Could you enhance the contribution levels. What impact would this have on your business?

What other benefits could you offer?

We are offering employee benefits advice to a few clients add employee benefits and the type of benefits being added include private health care for employee and family, death in service where you can pay either 2 times, 3 times or 4 times salary to next of kin, and critical illness cover.  These don’t have to be overly expensive, and is tax efficient for you as the employer. It also sends a really positive message to your employees.

When they have these benefits added to their salary package, it does make them think twice about leaving as these are really valuable benefits.

Other benefits could include additional holidays, child care vouchers, gym memberships or discounts, flexible working arrangements, with slight changes to start and finish times, financial support with training or time off to attend training. You can also look at some kind of flexible benefits where people can choose the level of benefits for their lifestyle.

So, even as an SME business, you could be creative and look at offering some additional benefits.  What I’ve outlined isn’t expensive, and if you wanted to know more about how to set these up, or get approximate costs and further employee benefits advice, please reach out to us.