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How much do you know about the types of employee benefits most valuable to workers? Whether you own a company or sit in a corporate C-suite, are you in tune with the employees who make the company run? Hopefully, you are. Your company’s benefits package may tell the story.
Employee benefits have been the backbone of worker compensation in this country for decades. Health insurance and retirement plans are the traditional benefits most companies start with. From there, companies add things like:
- dental and vision plans
- paid time off (PTO)
- life insurance
- disability and accident insurance.
Benefits added above and beyond health insurance and retirement plans are considered voluntary benefits. There are a lot of them. But do you know what employees say are the top five benefits for 2023? Here they are, based on recent research by Remote:
5. Family Health Insurance
For the record, Remote’s survey was conducted among 10,000 full-time U.S. and European workers. The fact that most European workers have access to single-payer healthcare affects the results. That said, the number five most important benefit is family health insurance.
This particular benefit pertains mainly to American workers. It is a big one, according to Dallas-based BenefitMall. As a brokerage general agency, BenefitMall carriers strive to offer the best family plans. They say family plans are among the most popular of all insurance benefits.
4. Company-Sponsored Retirement Plan
It is no surprise that employees on both sides of the Atlantic would value a company-sponsored retirement plan. Government-based retirement plans, like America’s Social Security, are not intended to be an employee’s sole source of income in retirement. Government benefits are supplemental benefits. Employees are smart enough to know that said benefits will not amount to much when the time comes.
3. Flexible Work Hours
The #3 most important benefit has nothing to do with compensation, health insurance, or retirement. What is it? Flexible working hours. Experts say that the importance of flexible scheduling has come into his own since the COVID pandemic
COVID related shutdowns gave employees a golden opportunity to test out flexible scheduling for themselves. Not only did it work, but it also worked well. So much so that employees are asking for flexible work hours at a rate of 77%. Many of them are willing to give up salary and other benefits in exchange for flexibility.
2. Private Health Insurance
Just as family health insurance pertains mostly to U.S. workers, private health insurance pertains mainly to European workers. Consider UK workers as an example. All UK citizens have access to government-paid healthcare through the National Health System (NHS). Those who can afford private health insurance can also seek out private healthcare services as they see fit.
This is an important benefit to European workers looking to bypass their government health systems for whatever reason. More than 77% say that private health insurance is important to them.
1. Overtime Pay
Believe it or not, Remote’s data dictates that just over 79% of the surveyed employees want overtime pay. It is not clear how such a benefit would apply to European workers. But here in the States, salaried workers are not eligible for overtime. Overtime pay is only offered to hourly workers. Therefore, it wouldn’t be a surprise if lower and middle managers were the ones asking for overtime pay here.
Health insurance and a retirement plan are still high on the list of most desired benefits. But employees are looking for other benefits, too. If this top five list surprises you, wouldn’t you like to see the remainder of the top 10?
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