Happier employees, no new costs

You want to improve benefits but the coffers are empty — what’s an organization to do?

When a company wants to add value, it typically adds a benefit or upgrades current levels of coverage. This usually adds cost. But if employers want to add value without new costs, besides some initial investment for things like employee communication, they need to embark on a different path.

There are a number of strategies to enhance an employer’s current total rewards offering without having to add significant new ongoing costs.

Are some of your benefits a secret?

Adding “freshness” could be as easy as advising employees of all the things the employer offers. It’s surprising how many employees are not aware of everything the organization is already doing.

The value and expense of statutory benefits and the top-ups offered may be going unappreciated. Some companies offer product discounts or savings vehicles, such as Canadian Savings Bonds via payroll deduction, which may not be viewed by employees as part of total rewards.

Reviewing what an employer offers in its entirety and re-communicating the depth and breadth of the offering can give attention to areas of total rewards that may have been off employees’ radar screen.

Employees may be viewing benefits as very separate from the retirement offering and as very separate from cash compensation. In adding freshness, an employer may want to package total rewards differently. This can be done by developing an integrated total rewards framework by bringing all the components into a single visual. Give employees an illustration such that, at a glance, they can see everything available to them and how they interrelate.

Organizations can go a step further and link the visual to the employee’s own value proposition and the company’s corporate mission statement and external brand. Connecting what is done as a business with how employees are rewarded can bring a new perspective.

Add employee-paid "stuff"

Throwing money at a problem isn’t the only way to make it go away. Tell employees the company wants to improve total rewards but employees will have to decide if they want to foot the bill. The employer will assume some additional administrative costs — but no new budget can be allocated.

Employees have come up with wonderfully creative ideas beneficial to them for which they pay the cost but appreciate the employer role in facilitating ease of access and ease of payment.

There are a number of things companies can do that cost nothing other than increasing payroll deductions, such as an employer-negotiated discount for employees at a specific fitness facility. Employees who want a fitness benefit can then cover the cost through payroll deduction at the discounted fee negotiated by the employer. In this scenario, employees paid the full cost and the company’s cost is only the amount related to time spent organizing the discount and administering the payroll deduction.

Or it could be as simple as cosmetic changes to the office. If employers have space not currently being used, such as a foyer area, it can be transformed into a “reading and relaxing area” for employees who want a change of environment to continue their work or simply a place to relax. Giving employees an area like this could conceivably mean an organization has to spend less money on stress counselling and it directly responds to employees’ needs for a change of environment and a place to get away from the phones.

Choose it if you need it

This step involves a significant upfront investment. It involves selecting an element of total rewards everybody gets, regardless of whether they need or value it, and converting it into a credit employees can reallocate to something they value.

This is the concept behind flexible benefits but in this case its application is wider in the context of total rewards. This expanded flexibility is not for everyone and it is very much dependent on what an employer determines can be freed up from a “must have” offering to a “choose it if you need it” offering.

The inclusion of choice is a very powerful vehicle for employers who want to maintain a cost neutral environment while enhancing plan value. What has value to one employee may be worthless to another. Giving employees control will help the employer meet cost and employee relations objectives simultaneously.

Whether an employer adds freshness by redefining total rewards and expanding its scope, repositioning total rewards into a new context, adding employee-paid benefits that meet specific needs or shift current costs around to enhance value by offering choice, the point is ongoing costs can stay the same.

More often than not, by delivering what a company already offers differently, be it space, administrative services or negotiating power and communicating it well to employees, organizations can strengthen the employment relationship.

Daphne Woolf is a Toronto-based freelance writer. She can be reached at (416) 469-1300.

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