Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to establish the meaning of employee benefits, and how valuable they are in the corporate world. The paper will also focus on how businesses stand to benefit by increasing employee benefits. The research paper will analyze the employee benefits that the government requires that all employees avail to their employees and also the additional benefits that corporate entities offer to their employees as a way to motivate them and attract best talents. The paper will refer to major scholarly research studies conducted on the topic that will be sourced from reputable online sources. In addition to online sources, the paper will utilize text sources affiliated to this course.
Importance of Employee Benefit Plans
Employee Benefit Plans
Employee benefit plan pertains to other benefits that employers give their employees that are over and above salary and wages. These benefits may include medical insurance, overtime packages, profit sharing, vacation among others. employee benefit plan has become a critical component in today’s ultra-competitive corporate world. Apart from accruing these additional benefits to employees as a way to motivate them, they serve as an innovative way to involve employees and make them part and parcel of the business. Research has shown that engaging employees and making them feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves improves their performance considerably and the overall result to a company is much better.
Employee benefit plans vary considerably depending on the type of job and the employer. Government employee benefit plan packages are different from those offered by private entities. On the same note, full-time employees are entitled to a different benefit plan package compared to part-time employees (Gupta & Shaw, 2014). By law, all employers are required to offer the following benefits to their employees.
- All employees are entitled to paid time off to vote, perform military services and serve in a jury
- Pay federal unemployment and state tax.
- In a state where short-term disability programs exist, employers should allow employees to offer their contributions.
- Observe all workers’ compensation requirement
Employers are not obliged by the law to offer additional employee benefits such as retirement plans, life insurance plans, vacations, health plans among others. however, for a firm to derive maximum benefits from employees’ input, additional benefit packages have proved to be effective in motivating employees into performing at an optimal level which improves the overall business performance.
Importance of Employee Benefits
Motivated Employees
Today’s tight labor market is changing in terms of the benefits that are attracting employees. Research has shown that employees are preferring working in organizations that offer more and better employee benefit plan packages rather than working in an organization that offers lesser employee benefit plans but a bigger salary. According to Markos & Sridevi (2010), in a survey conducted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, respondents argued that more employee benefits meant that the company is considerate of its employees’ welfare and would rather make sure that that in the event of sickness or an accident occurs, they will be able to cope with the situation comfortably without wrecking them financially. In addition to this, today’s employee is much more informed about the necessity of an employee befit plan and therefore ready to take advantage of them. This means a company that offers better packages will likely attract better-qualified employees, maintain their current employees, and have an overall motivated workforce which translates to better results for the organization.
Retain and Attract Talent
Human resource management has become quite diversified today than it used to be several decades ago. Today’s employee feels comfortable working in an organization that recognizes their contribution and makes effort to compensate them both in monetary form and with additional benefits that are aimed at making their lives much more comfortable. Hiring employees has never been much difficult for firms. However, retaining them is always an up-heel task since other firms will always try to lure the best talents to come and work in their firm both as a competitive strategy and as a way to improve their employee capacity and productivity (Markos & Sridevi, 2010). Maintaining top talent requires more than a bigger salary. Firms offer additional benefits such as flexible work schedules that can allow workers to have enough rest time and engage in personal activities, a comfortable work environment that accommodates all employees irrespective of their cultural diversity or discrimination across racial lines.
Employees Become the Greatest Asset in Attaining Business Goals
Every organization has a strong mission and vision which acts as its driving force and competitive edge. Yet, no matter how well thought a company mission statement or vision is, the heavy lifting always falls back to the employees who are the ones running the organization in the background. Bringing them on board and assimilating them into the organization’s mission and vision ensures that every entity in an organization, from the management, stakeholders, and employees are working towards the same goals and objectives (Macey et al., 2011). Given that the organization benefits from the returns earned in terms of profit, the organization needs to find ways to incorporate its employees in enjoying their input in the organization that has yielded positive results. When employees are engaged in all the aspects of the organization including enjoying the returns, they start seeing the big picture and can be able to place their role in that bigger picture. The conviction to a greater picture and something bigger than themselves triggers an inert motivation that compels employees to embrace the process of making the organizational achievement a top priority. Although it may seem costly to the organization when increasing employee benefit plan packages, there is much more than an organization stands to benefit in the long-run. This strategy is being used in today’s corporate world and organizations have agreed that the returns are exponential.
Conclusion
An organization is just a structure that needs the input of its employees to make it fully functional and achieve the set goals and objectives. For the employees to fall in line and function optimally, the organization must offer lucrative employee benefits packages. Research has shown that employees would prefer working for an organization that offers better employee benefits compared to an organization that promises a bigger paycheck. Today’s employee values additional packages offered by an employer other than salary. Lucrative additional benefit packages also mean that such an employee values the input of employees and will be willing to support the growth of its employees’ career-wise. Following the above observation, corporate organizations are looking into ways to improve their packages to ensure that they maintain motivated employees, retain top talents and recruit better-qualified employees who are willing to offer their services to that particular organization. Based on my personal experiences, employee benefits play a crucial role in determining the type of organization an employee will work in. people want to work in organizations that offer lucrative benefit packages depending on the type of job. employees also want to work in organizations that are willing to support them in their bid to advance their career goals. Organizations that offer better packages are seen as likely to offer support to employees who want to advance their careers and therefore it is likely that employees will prefer to work for such an organization.
References
Gupta, N., & Shaw, J. D. (2014). Employee compensation: The neglected area of HRM research. Human resource management review, 24(1), 1-4.
Markos, S., & Sridevi, M. S. (2010). Employee engagement: The key to improving performance. International journal of business and management, 5(12), 89.
Macey, W. H., Schneider, B., Barbera, K. M., & Young, S. A. (2011). Employee engagement: Tools for analysis, practice, and competitive advantage (Vol. 31). John Wiley & Sons.