About employee benefits

Employee benefits are any forms of perks or compensation that you can provide to employees in addition to their salary.

A typical employee benefits package might include the following, and more:

Any form of indirect pay offered to an employee, either mandatory or voluntary, can be classified as an employee benefit.

Why employee benefits are the need of the hour

In the past couple of years, employees have had a lot of thinking time, which has led to a precise view of what they expect from their potential employer when they offer up their skills and commitment.

When a job role is as described and the salary offered is at par with the market rate, where else can a company stand out to attract the best talent? Companies have now realized that they need to stay a step ahead in terms of understanding where they can create positive impact.

Turning this to planned action is where the importance lies.

Key areas of employer focus

When planning their benefits offering, employers can keep the following areas of considerations at the forefront:

• Recruiting and retaining top talent
• Representing company values
• Appreciating and rewarding employees

Consideration 1: Recruiting and retaining top talent

Perhaps now, more than ever, with many people weighing up what a role has to offer in a more holistic sense, a generous benefits and perks package is crucial for recruiting and retaining top talent.

Therefore, boosting benefits and incorporating their consideration as part of your overall Human Resources strategic planning is the most logical action plan.

As thinking about employee retention is more in the space of employee satisfaction, where one size does not fit all, retaining talent is arguably harder than attracting it. The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 92% of employees say that the benefits provided to them are important for their overall job satisfaction.

Further insights suggest that flexible benefits are the way forward; which ultimately allows employees themselves to select what works for them. Here, you can consider benefits such as flexible working, professional development support, and a wellbeing allowance.

Consideration 2: Representing company values

Values define the way companies reflect themselves internally, as well as to the market.

A key component of attracting and retaining employees is to define and instill excellent company values. You can design employee benefits packages to both reflect your company's values and entice talent who feel aligned to these values.

Additionally, the benefits you offer send a message about your company’s beliefs. A good benefits package shows that you recognize your employee’s needs outside the workplace and want to support their overall wellbeing.

Consideration 3: Appreciating and rewarding employees

Offering attractive benefits is a proactive way of making employees feel rewarded and appreciated. If you demonstrate about the needs of your employees, you can also improve employee morale and loyalty.

When designing your benefits package, you can create an offering that is unique to your company by including benefits related to the personal needs of your employees.

Why you should automate your benefits 

It's always a good idea for organizations to invest in technology that can help enhance the benefits provided in the workplace, creating a strong base from which to adapt and innovate, to keep up with the ever-changing business landscape.

In an automated system, benefits packages can be easily set up when needed, managed for each employee individually, and accessed by employees from anywhere.

There are significant advantages in incorporating an automated approach to employee benefits management:

• Improved employee experience; visibility and self-service
• Efficient information management
• Centralization, which ensures consistency
• Information accuracy
• Compliance regulation

Automating your benefits essentially enables you to ensure that you maximize the positive impact of your benefits structure. Additionally, you will always an advantage over manual benefits administration.

How Yomly enables you to automate your benefits

The Yomly platform empowers you to do the following:

• Define benefit policies using DMN2-compliant policies (truth tables) or scripting

• Define when and how benefits are delivered. You can create and configure benefit types individually and then add them to one or multiple benefit packages, which in turn can be assigned to employees or employee groups.

• Display custom information about benefits to employees

• Allocate benefit amounts to employees on an ad hoc basis from employee profiles. For example, you can add air ticket accruals, add salary advances, and in some cases, edit a benefit amount assigned by default.

For more information about configuring and managing benefits, see For platform admins > About Benefits.