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19 Feb 2019

Employee benefits to make your business stand out

You’re a growing organisation, you already offer a competitive salary and you’re pulling together or already provide a great employee benefits package. So, what else could you offer to attract new employees into your organisation, especially millennials who have high expectations when researching prospective employers?

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Below, we take a look at some of the different types of employee benefits being offered to staff by some of the UK’s most popular organisations.

Generous holidays
A minimum of 25 days holiday is standard (on top of the usual public days) for many of the larger employers. Increasingly popular is allowing employees to purchase extra leave, giving staff their birthdays off work, extra days in between Christmas and New Year and the radical sounding unlimited annual leave, which is offered by some of the larger companies. 

Enhanced maternity/paternity leave
Businesses are progressively improving their employee benefits for parents and the amount of paid leave that some are providing their staff is growing. Some give their employees 36 weeks fully paid leave for mothers or fathers, some provide 26 weeks on full pay and others offer 39 weeks as standard, plus a further 13 weeks additional leave that can be taken later.

Travel opportunities
Sabbatical programmes are increasing in popularity as more people seek to travel, without having to completely sacrifice successful positions. Some companies have a choice of programs including up to six months paid leave. Some take their entire workforce away on annual, all-expenses-paid holidays or gift every employee an amount to use every year on their own adventures. Many organisations will also fund volunteering trips, allowing both the individual and the business to give something back.

Very flexible working
Of course, flexitime has been around for years but these days it is truly flexible at many organisations. Allowing staff to choose when and where to work – whether that be at home, in the office or on the move – has advantages for both employees and employers. Homeworking has proven to be more productive and with less sick time, better retention rates and less money spent on office space.

VIP treatment
Examples include new starts being treated to a trip to company chalets abroad or staff being given tickets to some of the most in demand exhibitions in the UK, absolutely free. Some companies have their own membership scheme giving staff discounts at all their bars, cafes, restaurants and gyms, as well as a private lottery and members only events.

Growth and development
Increasingly employers are encouraging their staff with their career aspirations, even if that career isn’t necessarily within the same area. Some companies run their own programme e.g. where the business funds up to 95 per cent of tuition and fees towards a diploma or certificate in qualified fields of study.

Promoting wellbeing
Looking after health should always be a priority, with employee benefits including body MOTs, dental care and private medical cover making up some of the key fundamentals of strong employee benefits packages. Mental health struggles is a growing area of concern and introducing activities to help increase positive mental health and wellbeing are becoming more popular.  It’s also pretty much well known now that physical activity is great for supporting mental health and corporate gym memberships are consistently one of the top performing employee benefits and are accessible to smaller businesses too.

Family events
These can be embraced by businesses on differing budgets and scales. Examples include hiring out a cinema every year and offering a free showing to all employees and their families; running an annual fun day, free to all employees who can bring family members or friends to a catered day of fairground rides, clay pigeon shoots and lots of activities for children. If you don’t have a social committee at your company to organise events for you, now may be time to introduce one.

Big discounts
Most retailers will give their staff a discount when purchasing their own product or service but some go further than others and depending on what it is you’re producing, could be highly sought after. This may not be applicable for your organisation but you can still offer desirable discounts to your employees through an employee discounts platform, with savings to be made on items from cars to the latest tech devices.

If you think your business isn’t of the size to warrant some of these ideas, remember that if you’re a smaller organisation you have the flexibility that some larger corporates with strict guidelines to follow don’t always have. You have the freedom to be doing things spontaneously such as a lunchtime barbecue on a particularly sunny day, taking everyone for drinks or finishing early to celebrate a big win.

You don’t have to be a huge organisation to be attractive to potential new recruits but if you aspire to stand out in an increasingly crowded market, you might think about introducing some attention grabbing employee benefits that are above and beyond the standard or just a little bit different.

This article is provided by You at Work. 

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