How to Create a Modern Benefits Program

Today is February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Time for exchanging cards, flowers, and looking at modernizing your benefits & rewards programs. You read that right. On the day most associated with love, we invite you start using it to attract and retain the talent you need.

Love Belongs in the Workplace

The concept of using love to attract and retain talent might make some cringe. It is only natural. Type the word love on your search engine and pictures of red hearts and couples embracing will inundate your screen. Many of us have come to associate the word love with romance (what the Ancient Greeks called Eros); it is common to believe that love has no place in the workplace.

We disagree.

In alignment with the definition of Gottfried Leibniz who said love is

“to be delighted by the happiness of another,”

love guides our work.

For every decision we make, we ask ourselves a simple question: Are we helping employers support and reward their employees as THEY want to be supported and rewarded?

Said differently, are we showing their employees love?

Using the Platinum Rule

This question is based on the “Platinum Rule;” treat others as THEY want to be treated. It takes the me-centered approach of the “Golden Rule” (treat others like you want be treated), and instead centers it on THEY. What do they want?

After all, this is what employees are asking for — the ability to customize their benefits.

This is why, as we described on our last post, the era of modern personalized benefits has arrived. The benefits of today must recognize (and celebrate) the needs of a diverse workforce.

Practically speaking, this means offering employees benefits that match their needs.

• Loan repayment, fitness app, and pet insurance for the recent college grad that is a pet parent who enjoys working out.
• Help finding childcare, caregiving reimbursements, and grocery delivery for the busy single parent.
• Laundry services, co-working space, travel reimbursements, and coffee for the employee that has to travel for work.

It also means rewarding people the way they want to be rewarded. Instead of giving them a plaque or a pin, it means recognizing them in a way they actually enjoy. Public recognition and an invite to get coffee might work well for some. While a private message and budget to hire a babysitter for a night of quiet would be great for others.

It might sound like a daunting task when you consider that the needs of employees are as diverse as they are, but it doesn’t have to be.

Checking Your Benefits for Love

A great place to start is to review your current benefits and rewards offering against the make up of your talent population. Are they showing your employees and potential employees love?

This requires you to first understand the make up of your organization. Focus not just on which segments are currently employed today, but also which ones seem to be missing or poorly represented. Some examples are:

• What age group do they belong to?
• How many of your employees are caregivers for children?
• How many are caregivers for adults?
• How many have to work onsite? Or prefer working onsite?
• Where are they geographically located?
• What races/ethnicities do they identify with?

With a clearer picture of your workforce make up and the talent segments that are underrepresented, take a look at the benefits you offer today. Review your benefits, ask yourself if they cater primarily to one employee segment, and consider changes that could make the benefits more inclusive. Examples are:

• Offering floating holidays instead of time off during Christian-centered holidays.
• Offering family leave that can be used by more than just parents when an employee needs to care for family.
• Offering employees fitness reimbursements for at-home workout equipment, gym memberships, or fees to enter races, instead of just an onsite gyms that cannot be enjoyed by remote employees.
• Offering loan reimbursement or pet tele-health to cater to the younger generations who are trying to get out of debt and have pets as their dependents.

For more ideas on how make benefits more inclusive click here to see our modern benefits checklist.

The final step before implementation is soliciting feedback. Share with your employees the changes you are considering, and ask them to share their thoughts. Request them to rank what benefits would provide them the most value, without forgetting that there might be some segments of the population that are underrepresented (or not represented at all) today; you also want to attract and retain these individuals.

Armed with this information, you can build a new benefits package that shows each employee some love.

Let Us Show You Some Love

If this all sounds amazing but you don’t have the bandwidth to do all this work, we are here for you. We understand the challenges HR teams face. This is why we make it easy to offer modern benefits and rewards that are meaningful and personalized. Let us delight in the happiness we can provide you.

It will be our way to say Happy Valentine’s Day.