No one wants to be described as “Basic”
Keeping up with Pop-Culture language is an endless game, and to many of us older than the age of 18, it makes no sense to our elder ears.
However, one thing that does make sense is the growing trend of using “basic” in common nomenclature to describe something negative or unappealing.
Well, this makes perfect business sense.
As we all compete to be the most desirable brand, have the best selling product, or garnish the highest degree of praise for our work, we all seek the “excellent” mark. We leave “basic” to someone else.
This is where we take a step back and then open ourselves up to that gut-punch opportunity: are we actually basic? Or are we excellent?
What would your employees say?
We all know it only takes one negative employee experience to outweigh 100 great experiences, especially when it comes to online presence. Social Feedback about your company, both organically and through dedicated website forums like Glassdoor, has become the newest go-to when measuring the pulse of your employees.
And if you fear searching yourself on Glassdoor or *gasp*, maybe even on Twitter, you need to have some internal company values soul-searching first.
Of course, there are also many “Old-School” ways to take the pulse of your employees that you can conduct on your own or with the help of your benefits broker using tools such as Survey-Monkey, or pre-formatted surveys through service providers like ThinkHR or HR360.
What is Basic, What is Average, What is Crazy-Cool?
There are 3 great resources that are currently released to the public that every benefits consultant should reference – because you as the employer contribute to the research. They are the broker’s trifecta of information:
- The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Survey on Employer Health Benefits,
- The PWC Health Institute’s Behind the Numbers report
- The MetLife Annual Employee Benefit’s Survey.
- The other new resource that your broker or consultant (or Head of HR) typically references comes straight from Twitter. Like @SHRM_Research
From these resources, we see stories that the "crazy-cool" perks like unlimited time-off, pets in the workplace, and the age-old “like Google” statements about arcade-style creative spaces are all still true outliers. These don’t happen everywhere–nor are they even statistically close to becoming “common.”
Below is a graph from the MetLife 2016 Employee Benefits Survey, showing employees' attitudes of “Must-Have” Benefits.
There is a BIG opportunity with very LITTLE effort to make a great improvement.
We can see that Medical and Dental is viewed overwhelmingly as “Basic.” Surprisingly, the #3 item from the survey is the 401(k)/Retirement plan - even ahead of Dental coverage. This underscores the employees' overwhelming uncertainty about their savings, and in turn, the ugly 4 letter word: “debt.” Smaller employers under 50 employees often find the ability to launch a true 401(k) difficult, especially when they have to pass an anti-discrimination test to guard against participation only by the highly compensated employees.
So, let’s take 3 items that are low cost, but highly sensitive to employee debt.
Does your medical plan impose a high risk of increasing debt through “medical debt?" In plain language, is your deductible over $3000?
- If so, an FSA or HSA can help offset this in terms of cash-based/tax-favored accounts.
- Don’t ask your employees to go boldly into these options alone; make them successful by participating as an employer with something as small as $250 a year (or go beyond “basic” and take the $600+ year contribution challenge).
- Take a smaller step if your bottom line doesn’t afford a cash contribution; allow the employee the option to buy a GAP program. They do a fantastic job of just what their name says: they fill in the gap.
Do you (or why don’t you) offer Short Term Disability?
- The price is relatively low when Short Term Disability is offered as an Employer-Paid Benefit.
- With just one employee who has a week or 2 missed without Short Term Disability, you probably end up being too generous as an employer.
- Oh, and you set a bad precedent for any other employee who gets sick or hurt later on if you end up “self-insuring” a disability event.
Financial Education - Offer It!!!
- This should be a “no-brainer” when it comes to cost versus loyalty.
- Lunchtime, After Hours, or just a 1-hour event every quarter can go along way.
- Employees who aren’t stressed about debt can be more focused at work. We’ve seen it even internally when our employees disappear to respond to creditors. No one wants to be in this situation, and as an employer, you can help.