Employee Benefit #15 Home Services
Work-life balance is endangered as remote work interferes with private time. Make it easier for them by providing them with free services, such as grocery delivery, cleaning, or laundry. According to Maid Sailors NYC Office Cleaning “There’s sudden growth for companies availing personal cleaning services for their employees working at home. Many organizations believe that providing employees with a hand to have a clean workspace at home can help them be more productive and efficient.”
The Basics: Health And Dental
Health and dental benefits are considered the foundation of any benefit program design. When considering the root issues of all absenteeism from the workplace, most employers agree that health or dental related illness are cited most often as the cause. While many have not thought of dental coverage as being a key attraction point, a number of medical reports have been published recently that indicate many of our common virus and illnesses are actually related to poor dental health. An organizations ability to be creative, flexible and generous in providing health and dental coverage can be a key to attracting and retaining top performers as part of the total compensation package.
Health
Even in Canada, where government plans provide approximately 70% of all health care expenses, the remaining gap is still perceived as a major concern for employees and employers. Private health care plans are restricted by legislation to expenses not fully covered by government programs.
Organizational health expense plans are generally permitted in the following areas across Canada:
It is common practice to include many of the above items under a single extended health care plan. Most benefit carriers will tailor a plan to include only those features and coverages desired. Certain items, however, are often restricted or sold in combination with other coverages to contain overall plan costs or to subsidize heavily utilized services.
Dental
Types Of Employee Training Programs Based On The Mode Of Dissemination
You could also categorize the different types of employee training and development by using the learning channel as a defining criterion. While classroom sessions were the industry standard, HR has now dramatically expanded its reach, with a variety of dissemination modes:
1. Self-driven e-learning: In this model, employees are provided the requisite learning materials in a digital format, either on a learning management system or via MOOCs. A specific timeline is set, within which the employee can determine a convenient training schedule. E-learning could also come with certifications that add to the workers overall employability.
2. Role-play/Simulations: In the pre-digital era, role-play was a popular mode for disseminating soft skills and diversity training. Today, the advent of augmented reality and virtual reality have made simulated environments more accessible. Essentially, this tactic places employees in real-world scenarios to help them observe and learn.
3. Mentoring/One-on-one coaching: Here, the employee is assigned a dedicated trainer that guides them across the learning journey. Mentoring happens via the internal community , leveraging skilled professionals already present in your company. Coaching, on the other hand, could bring in third-party experts.
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Fringe Benefit Rate: Definition And How To Calculate It
If youre an employer, you probably offer your employees some additional perks along with a competitive salary. These incentives, known as fringe benefits, are commonly used to attract and retain top talent.
When you want to compare your fringe benefits to those from other businesses, its helpful to learn how to calculate a fringe benefit rate. In this article, we explain:
Defined Contribution Plans Vs Defined Benefit Plans
Distinction criteria
Post-employment benefit plans can be either defined contribution plans or defined benefit plans. This distinction is crucial as the accounting treatment is completely different. Paragraphs IAS 19.26-49 set out the criteria to distinguish defined contribution plans from defined benefit plans.
In short, defined contribution plan is a plan when the entity pays a specified amount to a fund and has no legal or constructive obligation to make additional payment if the fund has not enough money to pay the benefits later, or for any other reason.
The most common example of a defined contribution plan is a retirement plan when the employer pays a contribution to an employees personal account. This money is then invested and after reaching a certain age , an employee receives payments from this account . The amount of payments that an employee receives upon retirement is determined by the contributions paid by employer and investment returns. If the investment returns are poor, or for any other reason, the employer does not have to make any further payments.
Constructive obligation
State plans
State run plans usually are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis where future benefits of an employee earned during the current period will be paid out of future contributions of other employees. Therefore, an entity has no legal or constructive obligation to pay those future benefits, which makes most state plans defined contribution plans .
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Advertise Your Employee Benefits
Tell the world! Use your newly designed employee benefits program to attract new, high quality employees. In other words, use this substantial content for your employer branding. Mention your employee perks in every job ad you create, or make a PR announcement, spread it on companys social media and on your career page.
What Are Examples Of Analytical Questions
Analytical questions can range from easy queries like what makes you unique? or what interests you about this job position? to complex questions like how do you balance the benefits and drawbacks before making a choice?
Other examples of analytical inquiries that test the analytical thinking of candidates include
- Give a step-by-step explanation of how you would resolve or address issue.
- How would you make a decision if you had to choose between two or three possibilities in a certain situation?
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Add Optional Benefits Package
On top of your basic employee benefits package, create an optional package. For example, offer your employees one additional financial benefit of their choice. That way, they can either choose student loan repayment, retirement plan or another benefit of their choice without burdening your company too much financially.
Why Employers Offer Fringe Benefits
The following are some of the reasons why employers invest in fringe benefit programs:
Public perception
Companies that offer additional benefits above the salary often stand out from their competitors, and it makes the company attractive to different stakeholders. For example, customers are likely to buy from companies that are recognized in the public arena for treating their employees right and creating a safe place to work. The company will also attract talented workers who are looking to join organizations that value their employees.
Employee wellness
Companies lose money when employees are unable to work due to work-related illnesses and injuries. This is because the employees will spend time seeking treatment when they would have been offering their skills and experience to the company. Creating a safe working environment and providing fringe benefits such as gym membership, health insurance, and dental care coverage can improve their health and reduce sick leaves.
Employee engagement
Employees often work harder when they feel that the employer appreciates their contribution to the company. One way to increase employee satisfaction is by providing additional benefits like paid holidays, health care insurance, employer-provided car, stock options, etc. It will help reduce incidences of a disgruntled workforce and keep the employees engaged.
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How Do Employers Determine Compensation And Benefits
There are many factors that go into determining an employees compensation and benefits. Each industry, organization, position and employee is different. Some common factors include:
- Years of experience
- Education The highest degree earned and degree area
- Job performance ratings
- Job title and responsibilities
- Job location and the cost of living
- Supply The availability of qualified candidates
- Demand The degree to which you need to fill a particular role
- Company size and stage of the company Is this a startup, a mid-sized company or an enterprise corporation?
- Skill sets Will you need to be brought up to speed or are you coming in with more than what is required? Do you have in-demand skills?
- Full-time equivalent status
- Exempt vs. non-exempt status Will you be eligible for overtime pay?
Certain roles may have different structures. Think about sales wherein the two major components of compensation are base pay and variable pay . For roles that are heavily commissioned, there will be a lower percentage of base pay and a higher percentage of variable pay. On the other hand, government institutions may have a formula they use to determine salary ranges. For example, a law enforcement officers rate of pay is based on geographic location, grade and step.
Look Into A Wellness Program
One of the most popular discretionary benefits is an employee wellness program. Such programs include multiple ways to keep employees healthy from diet guidance, smoking cessation programs, and even free gym passes. You can also provide benefits related to mental health, like weekly meditation sessions or free subscriptions to apps like Headspace.
Wellness programs do not just benefit your employees they benefit your company, and may actually make money over time. Healthier and happier employees are much more productive, and a healthier workplace can cut down on insurance costs overall.
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Retain Your Best Employees With An Attractive Fringe Benefit Rate
An attractive fringe benefit rate can help you retain your best employees and hire the most promising talent in your industry. Freelance accountants on Upwork can help you choose the best fringe benefits to grow your business while ensuring youre making good financial decisions in the process. And if youre an independent professional whos currently looking for more clients, see how Upwork makes it easy to apply for accounting jobs on our platform.
What Are Discretionary Benefits And Should You Consider Them
Discretionary benefits refer to any type of benefits you are not required to provide by law. This umbrella term includes myriad benefit types, from supplementary dental and vision insurance to perks like wellness programs and child care stipends. In a competitive job market, a generous benefits package sets you apart from competition and helps you attract top talent.
Big tech companies like Google and Twitter are well-known for incredibly generous perks, ranging from catered meals to weekly massages to vacation reimbursement. While these types of discretionary employee benefits may not be tenable for the average company, many perks that fall outside a traditional benefits package will not cost you a significant amount of money.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of discretionary benefits? What type if any should you provide your employees? Below, we will go over the pros and cons of discretionary benefits and offer some brief suggestions on building a competitive package.
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Characteristic Features Of Employee Benefits:
Employee benefits are those payments which are paid to him in addition to the wages and salary he receives.
These benefits are not given to the worker for any specific performance of the jobs but they offered boosting his interests in work and make the job more productive for him.
Employee benefits represent labour cost. Whatever benefits are offered to the employees in kind or in money terms account for cost.
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These benefits are offered to employees irrespective of their merit. Merit or non merit is not the criterion for these benefits.
Benefit given by the employer is meant for all the employees and not a specific group of employees.
This is a positive cost incurred by an employer to finance employee benefit.
What Is A Fringe Benefit Rate
The fringe benefit rate is the percentage of an employees wages relative to the fringe benefits offered to them. Every employees fringe benefit rate can be calculated by comparing fringe benefit costs to the base salary they receive. This rate helps businesses calculate the total cost of an employee.
While fringe benefit rates often vary for each industry, the monthly report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that benefit costs accounted for 30.9% of the total compensation of civilian workers, 29.2% of total compensation in the private industry, and 38% of total compensation in state and local government in September 2021.
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How Are An Employees Fringe Benefits Taxed
Fringe benefits are generally taxed, but you can get significant tax benefits for health insurance coverage, child support, educational assistance, retirement plan contributions, disability insurance, and more.
The Internal Revenue Service offers a detailed guide on fringe benefits for employers. Note that the taxable fringe benefits paid by the employer to an employee must be included in the employees annual W-2 statement. If youre also paying taxable fringe benefits to independent contractors, you must report it on Form 1099-NEC.
Recruit And Retain Employees
A generous benefits and perks package is crucial to have if you want to recruit and retain top talent, especially because of the Great Resignation1. According to Zenefits2, 63% of companies say retaining employees is harder than hiring them. If youre struggling with your retention rate, boosting your benefits package is an excellent place to start.
The Society of Human Resource Management3 also found that 92% of employees say their benefits are important for their overall job satisfaction.
In a related article, 63% of job seekers4 surveyed say they pay attention to what benefits a company offers. This means that providing benefits for employees, and listing them in your job ads, is an integral part of successful hiring efforts.
While all benefits arent mandatory, you should add various types of employee benefits to your compensation package. Outside of health plans, employees, particularly younger employees, find fringe benefits, such as PTO, flexible work schedules, and professional development to be very important benefits to include in your companys benefits package.
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Childcare Centres Or Reimbursement
Once working parents return to their jobs, some employers offer access to in-office childcare centres or reimburse the cost of childcare fees. Offering this benefit is a great way for companies to encourage employees to come back to work after parental leave and help them provide proper care to their children throughout the day. Often, these benefits last while children are under a certain age and require constant care.
We Take Care Of Our Greatest Asset: You
We do a much better job taking care of patients if we first take care of our employees. Thats why we offer All Our Best in benefits, which you are sure to find not only first-rate, but also family-friendly.Baptist Health Employee Benefits extend beyond health, dental, life and disability. You get free access to amenities throughout the hospital, local discounts in the community, paid time off, and more. We want you at your happiest and healthiest so that you can Keep On Amazing.
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Legendary Leader Annual Award
The Legendary Leader award recipient consistently embraces and demonstrates NEBHs Legendary Service philosophy and core values. They lead through innovation & efficiency of programs. This visionary leader creates an environment of high employee and/or patient loyalty through unprecedented efforts of sustained excellence in their responsibilities and service to the organization. The Presidents Council will review the nominations and select the recipient.
Types Of Employee Training Programs Based On The Employee Journey
You can figure out how to train an employee depending on where they stand on their employee journey in your company. Across their tenure, the journey can be segmented into three steps, each requiring a specific type of training:
1. Pre-onboarding training: Also known as orientation, this type of training tells a new employee all about the companys culture, values, and mission, even before they step into the office. Orientation also covers necessary topics such as organizational policies, admin procedures, and compliance norms. This is a mandatory training type for any company.
2. Training at the time of onboarding: The onboarding experience is meant to familiarize the recruit with the basics of their job. Thats why this is a critical part of training new employees. Explaining the various aspects of the job, basic skills that the employee will need from day one, and digital skills for using the necessary productivity apps, comes under onboarding.
3. Workplace training: Depending on the level of experience an employee brings, you may or may not need to provide rigorous training on hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills will empower them to work better, while soft skills make employees a valuable addition to the company culture. Some level of workplace training is usually necessary when training new employees.
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Show Employees That Their Feedback Matters
Many companies distribute annual engagement surveys, but very few actually take the time to read employee comments, let alone act on them. Survey fatigue is a direct result of leadership not taking immediate action on feedback. And even if they do act on the results of an annual survey, chances are that any response will take place too late to make a difference, as it takes months to move through stages of the annual survey cycle from deployment to analysis to response.
Encouraging employees to frequently provide honest feedback and actively changing your organization to fit their needs empowers employees by giving them a real voice in how the organization functions. In Achievers Engagement and Retention Report, 90 percent of workers said that they are more likely to stay at a company that takes and acts on feedback. HR and engagement leaders agree 64 percent say an always-on feedback tool is essential to an engagement listening program. However, only 20 percent use such a tool.
Feedback reveals how to effectively empower your workforce