Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 6 seconds

How Many Benefits Are You Providing? Featured

How Many Benefits Are You Providing? "Shane with a fan of American one hundred dollar bills."

As a small business owner, employee benefits are a critical component that you must take into account. The coronavirus pandemic has subjected employees to untold suffering, and acute financial stress never witnessed before. The financial issues originated from losses made by organizations. This has plunged many employees into poverty as more than 60 percent of employees were stressed about money while around 40 percent lacked adequate savings to cover their over $400 expense. As the pandemic bites, what you need to ask yourself as a small business owner is, how many benefits am I providing to my employees? For employees, financial benefits are important because it relieves them of pain such as the one we are now experiencing. However, even without the pandemic, one must ensure employees get employment benefits in different forms. Here are some financial benefit ideas that can help your employees:

  • Benefits that help with unexpected expenses

Almost every American is going through a difficult time financially-even employees that earn more than $100,000 a year. These financial challenges are the reason for increased stress in the lives of many people. In such an unpredictable environment, it is becoming important to save money just in case of an emergency. As a business owner, help your employees in situations where they need money to address surprise emergencies. One way of doing so is using payroll services that allow free access to funds even before paydays.

  • Compensate your employees

There is always a possibility of getting sick or injured in the line of work. As such, each company must insure its employees and compensate them where necessary, even if it is not mandatory in your state. Formulate policies that cover wage replacement options for injured employees as well as medical bills for the sick. This depends on various factors. One of them is the size of your team, injury and industry, among others. 

  • Implement flexible work options

With the pandemic, flexible working options have never been more important. According to some experts, working in one location leads to burnouts that affect the annual team turnover. Therefore, you must find a way of keeping stress away by allowing your team to work in an environment that they like. Give them a chance to work when they want and where they want. Flexibility in the work environment promotes work-life balance. Studies show that employees are more productive when they are on the couch when they are at their desks.  

  • Offer student loan assistance

Most young employees are students in institutions of higher learning. Just like any other student, they often face challenges paying their school fees. If you want to retain this group of employees, a perfect starting point will be offering student loan assistance. You can set aside a few dollars per employee per month to allow them to pay off their loans in time. According to 2018 research, 69 percent of student graduates with loans. Accordingly, 86 percent of the graduates aged between 22 and 33 are ready to commit to an employer for over five years if given student loan assistance. Therefore, as a business owner, providing such a benefit will allow you to get fresh, qualified and committed employees.

  • 401 (K) plans

More than half of American workers save nothing for retirement. Even if you train your employees on the importance of saving for the future, chances are, they might not heed the call. As such, you need to have a way of helping your team in saving for their retirement. The perfect way of doing so is by offering a 401(K) plan that automatically deducts some amount from their paychecks into their retirement accounts. This will not only help them but will earn you some tax credits as well. Most importantly, it will not cost you at all.

Read 2812 times
Rate this item
(0 votes)
Scott Koegler

Scott Koegler is Executive Editor for PMG360. He is a technology writer and editor with 20+ years experience delivering high value content to readers and publishers. 

Find his portfolio here and his personal bio here

Visit other PMG Sites: