New face of employee benefits reaps results

The significance of this evolution is profound, as it impacts meaningfully on the nature of the benefits bouquet provided by employers and on the general wellbeing of employees. Indeed, today's fringe benefits have an appreciable impact on employment of choice - a critical phenomenon in the current era of skills shortages.

In short, if employers wish to attract the best available talent - as they should if they are to triumph in the modern world of cutthroat competition - they need to offer a suite of employee benefits that at least matches those of their competitors. The rapidly growing interest in Deloitte's annual "Best Company to Work For Survey" is indicative of the widespread awareness of the important part that employee benefits can play in the prosperity of an organisation.

Attitudes and desires of employees

Deloitte offers its own perspective: "A number of savvy business leaders are seeking new sources of growth and are tailoring their talent programmes to address differing regional and demographic needs, to support effective talent strategies and business operations. Yet despite this trend, too many organisations still do not have a realistic picture of the divergences between the attitudes and desires of their employees, and the talent strategies and practices they have adopted. To compound this situation even further, the general sentiment amongst employees we have surveyed suggests that their employers are not doing a good job at implementing their talent strategies."

What has become abundantly clear from the data generated by the Best Company to Work For Survey is that having a talent strategy in place with supporting policies and procedures does not guarantee that an organisation will be experienced and recognised by its employees as an employer of choice. The existence of these alone is not enough. Unless they are aligned with the needs and expectations of the workforce, and are understandable, accessible to all and, perhaps most importantly, executed appropriately and consistently by the organisation's leaders at all levels, the road to recovery is likely to be a rocky one.

Work lifestyle ethic taking root

Quite clearly, therefore, the work lifestyle ethic is taking root. Where it isn't, it certainly should. An associated recent report, also by Deloitte, found that health and productivity were linked, suggesting that organisations should strive effectively to correlate benefits and related investments in wellness with productivity. An instructive example is an in-house day-care facility, usually in the form of playrooms where employees entrust their children to care-givers during working hours. Another is an arrangement whereby certain employees work from home on a preselected number of days in the week. Getting the job done involves logging onto the company network on their laptops at home. And it works.

What of employers that cannot justify running an in-house wellbeing centre? The options include a shared facility with another employer in a similar position, supplemented by occasional weekends at a resort away from home with employees' families where they relax while bonding with their fellow employees. Some companies even provide, as part of an employee-benefits package, a gym and entertainment areas. Such benefits are becoming more attractive to employees because of the growing number of hours employees nowadays spend at work. Significantly, an employer that recognises the importance of reconciling those hours with employees' personal lives thereby achieves heightened productivity. Companies are also offering benefits like financial planning services to their employees on how to plan for their financial future. As an allied benefit, most companies now give their employees medical aid cover.

Some companies also offer educational assistance programme for employees' families as a benefit; assistance programmes not limited to the families but that include the employees themselves in instances where they wish to further their own studies. Sabbatical programmes, too, have proved to enhance employees' productivity. Accommodations of this nature tend to meet changing needs. For example, in the US three out of four married men now live in dual-career households, up from one in two in 1977. Men in dual career, dual-caregiver households now cite more work-life conflict than women do. And that changes their employee benefits needs.

Work/life balance challenges

A May 2011 study, conducted by WFD Consulting's Peter Linkow and Jan Civian, showed that work/life balance challenges, while affecting women and men in the working environment, affect them differently. The research revealed that 25 percent of men found it difficult to spend time with their families owing to the work environment model. Some 17 percent of women experienced similar difficulties.

Hence the proliferation of employee benefits. A vital sub-text to the employee benefits debate is that employees enjoying the benefits in question do so with the knowledge that their employer cares for their wellbeing.

Small wonder, then, that the kind of benefits an employer offers is now a huge factor determining whether or not people choose to work at that organisation. Benefits relating, in particular, to leave entitlements, working arrangements and wellness programmes have shown that employees benefiting from these initiatives not only enjoy their work, but are also more productive.

The overriding blessing of the new face of employee benefits is to make the employees feel that their place of work is not only where they get their money, but also where they truly belong and are sincerely valued.

And when they become imbued with a sense of working in a great place, they will go out of their way to generate outstanding results and productivity.