The top 10 employee benefits to help improve work-life balance
From 10th October to 14th October, it is National Work Life Week, an annual campaign that highlights the importance of having a work-life balance, encouraging employers to focus on how their work allows everyone to thrive both at work and at home.
Creating a healthy work-life balance for your employees can bring about a number of benefits for the company, including:
- Increased staff retention
- Reduced absences and sick days
- Increased morale and employee engagement
- Increased staff retention
A report by software provider Cipher, polled over 1,000 UK workers and found out that 67% of employees ranked a work-life balance as the most important aspect of a job. In order to help with the work-life balance, employers should offer support where they can.
We’ve put together 10 employee benefits that can help improve work-life balance.
1. Insurance policies – Health/Life Insurance
Life and health insurance is a valuable benefit to offer your employees. It can often be easy to provide and can play a major role in helping you attract and retain good quality staff. It can also be affordable if your company is able to offer group insurance, as group health insurance is much cheaper than individual plans: the larger the group, the more affordable the cover. Offering healthcare to employees means they can have access to high standards of healthcare, and they have shorter wait times for treatments, in return employers can expect a reduced employee turnover rate as well as employee productivity and company morale.
2. Paid Annual Leave
Paid annual leave is a legal requirement for employers, however, it is up to each company as to how long they can offer. Most employees are entitled to 28 days of paid annual leave a year, which can include bank holidays. Employers can choose to offer more than the legal minimum, which could help them stand out from competitors. Companies can also offer additional annual leave days by the length of service; this can act as an incentive for employees to stay in their roles for longer.
3. Employee Benefits
Employee benefits packages are forms of rewards offered to employees in addition to their salary. Benefits can range from a number of different things such as rewards, services, facilities, or activities available to employees. This could include discounted gym memberships, company social events, company gifts, or even food vouchers for office lunches.
4. Parental and Childcare Support
Being a parent whilst working can be incredibly demanding, and therefore companies need to ensure employees have the support they need so they do not burn out or feel incapable of managing their work responsibilities. Companies can offer a range of benefits to help with childcare, including childcare vouchers and crèche facilities.
For new parents, employees are eligible for 2 weeks of statutory parental leave and pay, which amounts to £156 a week. However, if companies offer a more generous maternity leave scheme, they could reap the benefits not only from their employees but for the company as a whole as well. This includes fostering a more loyal workforce, boosting staff retention, attracting a more diverse talent pool, reducing the gender pay gap, and improving employee mental health.
5. Mental Health and Wellbeing Support
When work becomes too much and consumes your life, your mental health can deteriorate meaning you could experience burn-out and depression, meaning you will be less productive and left dreading your work environment. Therefore, workplaces must offer some sort of well-being guidelines or support to help build a resilient workforce.
If the company is only small and cannot afford to run workshops, then the managers should make sure they create a supportive environment where employees feel safe enough to discuss any issues impacting their mental health both inside and outside of the workplace.
6. Flexible Work Hours
Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, for example having flexible start and finish times. It works well for parents who have to juggle their children’s needs around the working day. Although the timing suits the employee, the company receives many benefits in return, including the attraction of a more diverse workforce, improved retention rates, increased productivity, and job satisfaction.
7. Remote Working
Remote working may not be as popular as it is now if it wasn’t for the pandemic guidelines in 2019, encouraging people to work from home (WFH) where they can. Since then, many companies have either kept the WFH initiative or encouraged a hybrid working style that allows a variation of time between working from home and in the office. Remote working contributes to many factors that can improve a work-life balance, as it cuts out the commute time. For example, previously you might have been stuck in traffic, but now you can use this time to do some exercise or do some household chores.
Read more about the benefits of remote IT jobs in 2022 here.
8. Subsidised Travel
Companies can subsidise travel costs in various ways, including offering a cycle-to-work scheme, reimbursing public travel season ticket costs, offering loans to cover travel costs, and offering costs to cover parking. Companies can also claim HMRC mileage rates, meaning they can then reimburse employees for travel costs if they use their vehicles for business. This can improve staff satisfaction – particularly as fuel costs continue to rise.
9. Financial Wellbeing Support
According to Perk box, money is the biggest stressor for employed adults in the United Kingdom, and when employees are stressed, they may begin to underperform at work. Therefore, if a company can support employees with financial well-being it will help to create a supportive work environment. By law, a company has to offer a pension scheme, and they can offer three different types. The most common one is a defined contribution pension, where both you and your employer agree to contribute a certain percentage of your wage every month. Knowing you have money put aside for your future can help ease any a little bit of financial stress.
Financial support could also be in the form of offering to contribute towards student loan repayments, paid progression or bursaries for further studies, discounted gym memberships, or subsidised travel costs.
10. Career Progression Opportunities
Offering career progression opportunities to your employees will help them feel like valued members of the company, it will increase their confidence and engagement within their role. Often people who aren’t satisfied with their roles get bored and may begin to look for a new job, meaning lack of career progression can also affect employee retention. Offering career progression will also help to attract top talent, as those individuals will want to work for a company that has their best intention at heart.
Employee benefits can vary in costs; therefore, companies should look into what options suit them best. Even if companies can’t afford to offer health insurance, or subsidise travel costs, there are still low-cost options such as hybrid working, flexible hours, or even just employee recognition.
Anything employers can do to provide a better, healthy work-life balance for employees will decrease stress levels helping them manage their day-to-day better. Balance means less stress, and less stress can help employees live healthier and happier lives.
