{"id":7652,"date":"2020-09-26T13:36:18","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T17:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/?p=7652"},"modified":"2020-09-26T13:36:35","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T17:36:35","slug":"how-to-create-an-employee-benefits-program-in-7-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/how-to-create-an-employee-benefits-program-in-7-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create an Employee Benefits Program in 7 Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you think salary is ultimately more important to employees than anything else, you may want to reconsider.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A 2018 study found that a shocking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aicpa.org\/press\/pressreleases\/2018\/americans-favor-workplace-benefits-over-extra-salary.html\">80 percent of employees<\/a> would choose a job with great employee benefits over an identical job role that had no benefits but paid 30 percent more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if employee retention is important to your company, one of the best things you can do is develop a great employee benefits program.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, how do you start the process of building a benefits program and what are the most important things to consider when you do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This guide is here to help. Keep reading for an overview of how to design an employee benefits program that your&nbsp;staff will love.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Determine a Budget<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you do anything else, you must determine how much money your company can afford to put towards a benefits package.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While you need to make sure that you&#8217;re not committing to something that the company ultimately can&#8217;t afford, try to remember the advantages of building out a benefits program while you work on the budget.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only will a comprehensive benefits package increase your current employees&#8217; satisfaction, but it can also help you be more competitive when recruiting for new hires.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you determine the right price, you&#8217;ll have peace of mind knowing that everyone wins when you offer great employee benefits.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Talk To Your Employees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While you&#8217;re still in the early phases of planning out your employee benefits program, it&#8217;s a good idea to talk to the people it&#8217;ll impact the most: your employees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Depending on the size of your company, you might hold a small meeting to get feedback from your staff on the benefits they&#8217;d find&nbsp;most desirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or, you could send out an anonymous survey to hear from employees in a low-pressure way. By getting their feedback, you can start to prioritize different benefits that appeal most to your workers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Know the Required Benefits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While developing this new benefits package, it&#8217;s a good time to make sure you&#8217;re familiar with all the required employee benefits you must offer. If you&#8217;re not currently in compliance with these regulations, make it a priority to do so.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless of the size of your company, you must offer the following benefits:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Unemployment insurance<\/li><li>Medicare and social security benefits<\/li><li>Workers compensation<\/li><li>Leaves of absence<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In certain states, disability insurance is also required. Check with your state laws to ensure you&#8217;re in compliance.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve confirmed you&#8217;re offering all the necessities, you can focus on additional&nbsp;option to make your benefits package more appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Decide What To Offer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Aside from determining your budget, this is the most important part of developing an employee benefits program.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are plenty of things you can offer your employees. Be sure to carefully consider all of them when deciding how to prioritize them. Here&#8217;s an overview of some of the most popular benefits to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Health Insurance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most popular (and most needed) employee benefits is health insurance. However, it&#8217;s also one of the most expensive, due to ever-rising premiums.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, you have options when deciding to offer health care. You can offer a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), which requires employees to choose from a network of approved doctors for treatment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), on the other hand, are generally more expensive, but they give employees more freedom when choosing a doctor. Point-of-Service and High-Deductible Health Plans are also options you may consider providing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dental Insurance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Many employees expect companies to offer dental insurance in addition to regular health insurance.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can choose to offer plans that cover 100 percent of employees&#8217; costs or a portion of their costs,&nbsp;depending on your benefits budget.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">401(K) Retirement Savings Plan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re looking to attract high-quality, talented employees, offering a 401(K) match is one of the best ways to do so.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In doing so, you can offer a set maximum percentage that the company will match when an employee contributes to their 401(K) retirement plan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Paid Time Off (PTO)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s no denying the importance of a healthy work\/life balance. But, it&#8217;s hard for employees to achieve that when they feel like they can&#8217;t take time off from work.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By offering the benefit of PTO, you can encourage employees to take time off when needed, and make your company more competitive in the job market as a result.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While most companies offer at least two weeks of PTO to start, offering a bit more can help set you apart from other similar companies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Calculate the Total Compensation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve decided on all the benefits your package will include, you need to calculate the total compensation value of the benefits plan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Essentially, this should show a dollar amount for each benefit, that can be communicated to your employees as part of an annual statement of their full compensation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only does this show your employees the&nbsp;<em>value<\/em> of the benefits package, but it can be a helpful number to show when recruiting for new hires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">6. Talk To an Expert<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If all of this sounds like a lot of work, that&#8217;s because it is! But, the good news is that you don&#8217;t have to do it all by yourself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you put your new benefits package into place, it&#8217;s a good idea to talk to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mployeradvisor.com\/employee-benefits-consultant.html\">Employee Benefits Consultant<\/a> to make sure you&#8217;re not overlooking anything.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They can help you define the plan from the very beginning or help you refine the plan you&#8217;re already developing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">7. Re-Evaluate as Needed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, remember that you don&#8217;t need to take a &#8220;set it and forget it&#8221; approach&nbsp;when creating a benefits package. Every few years, it&#8217;s a good idea to re-evaluate your plan and see if there&#8217;s room for improvement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Increase&nbsp;Worker&nbsp;Satisfaction with an Employee Benefits Program<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that you know how to create an employee benefits program, it&#8217;s time to get to work. Trust us, your employees will thank you for it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more helpful business advice like this, check out our other articles today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you think salary is ultimately more important to employees than anything else, you may want to reconsider.&nbsp; A 2018 study found that a shocking 80 percent of employees would choose a job with great employee benefits over an identical job role that had no benefits but paid 30 percent more.&nbsp; So, if employee retention [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7654,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7652\/revisions\/7654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}