Employee Benefits, Global
What do global employees want from benefits? Keeping your reward and benefits strategy ahead of employee expectations
04-07-2024
Last year when we reported our research findings, we revealed the monumental challenge that employers were facing in responding to the rapidly evolving needs of their employees. The very best, well-defined and targeted strategies and programmes were struggling to keep pace with employee expectations – and employers were looking to benefits to help support the financial, physical and emotional wellbeing of their people.
Encouragingly, many organisations were implementing ambitious and far-reaching initiatives to enhance the employee experience and protect employees. The issue for many HR and Reward professionals though was simply knowing whether they were focusing on the right things.
This year’s research shows that this challenge hasn’t gone away. In fact, employee expectations have gone exponential…
Benefex’s 2024 research report, The Expectation Exponential, reveals a growing gap between what employers think of the employee experience and what their people think. Almost two thirds (64%) of HR and Reward professionals believe that their organisation is delivering an ‘excellent’ employee experience – but only 20% of employees agree.
6 outcomes global employees want from benefits
Beyond salary, benefits is the most important criteria for employees making job-related decisions – and employees in all regions say their expectations of benefits and perks have increased in the last 12 months; in India, 65% say their expectations have increased, which is the greatest increase across the four regions we surveyed.
More than 90% of global employees state that it’s important for their benefits to protect them if they get sick, help them to achieve work-life balance and support their financial, physical and emotional wellbeing.
These expectations differ globally. Employees in India generally have the highest expectations in terms of the impact that benefits should bring to their lives, in particular when it comes to their financial wellbeing and mental health. Employees in Europe point to finding a good balance between their home and work life as the most desirable outcome that benefits can deliver, with 72% considering this to be very important. On the other hand, U.S. employees attach greater importance to benefits that provide them with sickness protection and those that support their financial wellbeing.
Core benefits such as private healthcare remain important to employees globally, especially where local state provision is limited.
Increasing investment in benefits
Benefits remain a major strategic focus for global employers. 71% of organisations are planning to increase investment in benefits over the next 12 months – with 24% of these organisations increasing investment significantly.
Employers will look to focus on establishing closer alignment between benefits and company values and purpose, providing benefits aimed at protecting and promoting employee wellbeing, and offering greater flexibility through benefits allowances. Other priorities throughout 2024 and 2025 will be achieving better insight and analytics into benefits uptake, engagement outcomes, and the implementation or upgrading of benefits platforms. Almost a third (32%) of global organisations also want to reduce administration of employee benefits by better use of technology.
There are some variances in investment intentions between organisations with global workforces and those operating only in Europe, with the former more likely to be directing additional budget to areas such as wellbeing support, recognition, sustainability, reward insights and reward technology. Interestingly though, organisations with workforces only in Europe are more likely to be increasing their investment in benefits provision.
Flexibility, choice and wellbeing support – the future focus of global benefits
48% of employees would like more flexibility in their benefits options.
Global employees are looking for greater flexibility in their benefits choices, the opportunity to make these choices at any stage throughout the year, and benefits that are relevant and personalised to their own needs and life situation. And they want benefits that support all aspects of their wellbeing.
Employees in S.E. Asia lead the way when it comes to wanting more flexibility in the benefits they choose and the ability to make these choices all year round. Once again, employees in India place a greater emphasis on employers offering improvements in benefits that support their wellbeing. They also want more intuitive and accessible technology to ease the benefits selection process.
Employees in Europe and the U.S, meanwhile, say employers could be offering benefits that are more relevant and personalised to them.
Organisations are evolving their benefits offerings across all these areas – and are increasingly looking to benefits allowances which enable them to offer the ultimate flexibility. In fact, 81% of employers also offer a benefit allowance and 11% are planning to implement one in the next month.
HR and Reward professionals with workforces operating only in Europe, will be more likely to increase their focus on employee wellbeing in their efforts to evolve employee benefits over the next two years.
Meanwhile, their counterparts in global organisations will be prioritising the alignment of benefits with company values and purpose. They’re also more likely to be looking to roll out a global benefits platform or to upgrade an existing platform.
Get your copy of The Expectation Exponential
Informed by more than 2,000 interviews with employers and employees across four continents, The Expectation Exponential, looks at what employees really want from their experiences at work, what HR and Reward teams are prioritising to deliver on employees’ demands, and how AI will ease frustrations in HR organisations. Get your copy here.
Paul Andrews
Global Benefits Director, Benefex
04-07-2024
