Offering a strong benefits package is key for any business, as not only does it help you to attract great talent, but it also helps you to maintain employees, as you’re showing them that you care about their well being outside of work, whether it’s financial, mental or anything in between. So, on top of the basic set of benefits you should offer (competitive salary, good pension, sick leave, healthcare etc.), you should go above and beyond to provide that extra something to your employees.
Flexible Working
First up, you should be allowing flexible working for your employees. Flexible working is all about being open to slight adjustments to the working day to fit around the lifestyle of your employees. Very often, it makes very little difference to you as an employer, but can be transformative for you employees. An example would be an employee who has a long commute. Rather than setting off at 7:30am and getting stuck in lots of traffic, making it to work just before 9am, flexible working may help them to set off at 6:30am instead, get to work for 7am and then finish two hours early in the evening, again missing rush hour. Another example would be someone who has a family commitment a few days a week, such as a slightly earlier school pick up, so perhaps they work from home two days a week to help with that.
A good way to allow flexible working without disrupting the way your business runs is to have some core days/times when everyone needs to be working or in the office. For example, you may ask that everyone is working from 10am to 3pm, and that everyone is in the office on a Tuesday and Thursday. This way, all of the collaborative group work and meetings can happen on these days, and you’ll keep a buzz in the office. Then, you can also provide flexibility to help your employees.
Lifestyle Contributions
Another benefit that you should offer is some kind of lifestyle contribution. Establishing a healthy work life balance is so important, and showing that you care about the wellbeing of your employees outside of work will help to show that. As well, helping employees prioritise their mental and physical health can also reduce the amount of time they take off work, so it does benefit the business.
What you are able to offer here will depend on your budget, however some examples would be paying for their gym membership (or providing a contribution) or providing some money on top of their salary for things like sports subscriptions. You could just give them some additional money to utilise how they’d wish, whether it’s on a wellness retreat or on some good quality organic produce that makes them happy. This gesture can go a long way.
Improved Healthcare Benefits
Lastly, as well as offering basic healthcare, you should go above and beyond where you can. Providing good healthcare cover, dental cover and eye tests is important, to keep your team healthy as well as happy. Looking at things like the right chairs for employees to protect their backs or providing healthy and nutritious snacks in the office also make a big difference. You could also look to do a monthly health support programme, discussing something different each month and providing some free samples, whether it’s the benefit of certain multivitamins or buying some loungewear sets for a yoga class to help your team learn how to stretch properly after a long day in the office.
