Why companies are investing more in employee benefits
03-12-2024
Each year, Benefex releases The Big Benefits Report. The report is informed by 2,000+ interviews with global employers and employees across four continents. One of the areas it explores are investment trends across the employee experience.
Over the past three years, employee benefits have become the foundation for enhancing employee experience. Organisations in all industries are approaching benefits as the most effective lever to meet their biggest, most strategic HR and workforce objectives – and deliver on employees’ exponential expectations.
Investment in benefits provision continues to rise and looks set to do so in the coming years. Employee benefits has become a major factor in how organisations go about recruiting, retaining and developing an engaged, skilled and motivated workforce. And with employee expectations now higher than ever, business leaders are approaching benefits as a strategic priority – central to innovation, productivity and growth.
The reasons employers invest in benefits are evolving
Consistent with last year’s findings, benefits remain a major strategic focus for organisations in all sectors. Benefits are the primary platform for employers to hit their key workforce objectives: to build a strong, inclusive culture, to protect and promote employee wellbeing, engagement and productivity, and to attract and retain high quality talent.
In line with this, HR and Reward professionals say benefits are the top priority for workforce-related investment over the coming year, with 71% expecting to increase spending on benefits. This is followed closely by investment in employee wellbeing, analytics, and reward technology.
Across the board, there is a sustained move away from cost-based approaches and towards value-based benefits strategies. Employers want to track and optimise the impact that benefits are delivering to employees in their everyday lives. The conversation around benefits isn’t around compliance; it’s about value and impact. The objectives have shifted from tactical to strategic.
There are some notable 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.
Most of all, HR and Reward professionals view benefits as a vehicle to retain existing talent and build loyalty amongst employees, to improve productivity and profitability across the organisation, and to enhance employee wellbeing.
Interestingly, the top priority for benefits in 2023 was to enhance wellbeing. In 2024 this priority has fallen to third place, behind talent retention and improved productivity.
Only 16% of HR and Reward professionals report that legislative compliance is a major area of focus for benefits provision, a similar figure to last year, suggesting that a greater take up of benefits technology is helping benefits managers keep on top of their compliance responsibilities.
How Ciena has created a globally consistent employee benefits experience
“OneHub has completely changed our employee experience. We wanted to encourage and create more of a self-service environment which would ultimately help to reduce the number of queries we were receiving on a daily basis, but also deliver a smooth, modern and consistent experience for our employees.
As a lot of companies do nowadays, we have employees moving from region to region, and different countries. So by rolling out one tool, it means that if the employee is already in a country that has the platform and moves to another country, the consistency is there – they see information pertinent to that specific country, but it’s in the same layout. The most important thing is our employees are enjoying this new tool. It’s giving them a single place to go and find all their benefits information and they’re finding it really easy to use.”
– Sophie Gilliam, EMEA Benefits Lead, Ciena
Get your copy of The Big Benefits Report
To uncover even more benefits trends and see how some of the best companies in the world are adapting their strategies, you can get your copy of The Big Benefits Report here.
03-12-2024
