Employee's Perceptions of Benefits: Good or Bad

The results of a Fidelity Investments’ Consulting Services survey were posted on Talent Management on Monday. The survey dealt with perceptions employees have of the benefit packages their employees provide. The good news was that the "...study that found that 72 percent of people believe that the benefits they receive at work are better than or as good as what most other companies offer." The bad news was "...most feel the value of benefits has dropped, with 61 percent of workers reporting they are paying more for benefits, but getting less or the same as they did in 2007." Unfortunately employers are increasingly put between a rock and a hard place. (If you are not sure what this means click on the link) Omega HR Solutions, the company in which I am a partner, helps companies with their benefit programs. My partners are group health insurance experts. They constantly struggle with this issues of coverage, group experience, desired coverage, employee retention and COST. In many cases employers have to make choices between coverage or no-coverage or reducing the amount of coverage.

The article goes on to say "Most workers surveyed underestimate the employer cost of providing health insurance to employees. A majority (53 percent) believe their employers pay less than $5,000 annually per person to provide health insurance. In fact, health plans typically cost employers $5,000 to $15,000 per employee on an annual basis." If this describes your company you need to make sure you are communicating the cost of benefits. Many employees do not have any idea what their employer spends on them. It can be a big retention tool. It certainly makes it easier to explain why benefits may be reduced if employees understand the money crunch those benefits may cause an employer.

Another section of the study talked about the view that many workers have about the future of their benefits. "The study found almost half of American workers surveyed (48 percent) believe their benefits, including health insurance, retirement savings plans and pension plans, won’t be provided by their employer 10 years from now.
The study found that 30 percent of workers surveyed think they will be responsible for obtaining their own benefits by 2019, 18 percent think the government will provide benefits, 28 percent think employers will still provide benefits to their workers, and 24 percent are not sure. Yet, benefits are so critical to today’s employees that one out of four surveyed said they are working more to receive the accompanying benefits than to receive the income."

An interesting future view. I wonder what the mix will be? What do you think?