Some employees, before joining an organization and while they are there, are always looking for perks and employee benefits available to them. However, a huge number of workers do not fully use them. This is largely because they are not aware of their availability. Employers are always confused as to why such a small number of employees are making use of the offered benefits. Whether you are running a small business with just a few employees or a large-scale organization, here is what you can do to make employees use their employee benefits to the full extent.
Track Utilization and Awareness of Employee Benefits
Employers should conduct surveys to find out how aware their employees are of their benefits. If it is low, you should run campaigns for educating them. The same goes for utilization. If there is awareness, but the utilization is still low, your should revisit the process of utilization and try to make using them easier.
Employee Surveys
For employers to customize, adapt, and build suitable plans, try giving out frequent and regular surveys to determine how the employees feel about their perks. Many marketplace tools are available to gain insights as to which benefits are serving their workforce the best.
Communication Channels
It is important to have channels through which employees can communicate their ideas, feedback, and reservations about the offerings. Weekly meetings, monthly e-newsletters, and virtual groups can play a healthy role. HR leaders should actively contribute to these platforms as well.
Employ Employee Word-of-Mouth
From the point-of-views of employees, they find the benefits they can extract out of such a program to be most attractive. Communicate the value of a certain benefit or through your employees, so they share the best perks with others. This in turn should get more employees to use their benefits.
Frequently Highlight Top Employee Benefits
Constructing channels is one thing and availing them for a purpose is another. You should highlight the available benefits and the value they offer frequently through these channels. It is important to evaluate the change it brings. Follow through with the process to check if the current methods require changes.
Let Employees Have a Say in Their Employee Benefits
If you allow employees to design and customize their own benefits, the rate of utilization is sure to go up. All organizations should have optional benefits in addition to core ones. Letting employees choose their own perks and personalize them is itself an additional benefit.
Valuing The Benefits
Categorizing your benefits by value is a great way to encourage your employees to use their benefits. During events that affect the emotional, financial, or physical well-being of an employee, bringing in benefits that can ease their situation increases the importance of those valuable perks in the mind of that employee.
Start Encouraging Your Employees To Use Employee Benefits!
Employee benefits are required by law to be a part of the total compensation offered by an employer to their employees. Additionally, it is important for employers to understand that employee benefits are designed to serve them along with serving the workers. The more the employees are satisfied and happy with the employer, the harder they will work. Thus, employee retention will go up and everyone is happy.
