Could Updating Employee Benefits Slow The Great Resignation?

• Remote workers are interested in benefits packages that include flexible hours, receiving performance bonuses, access to online courses, and contributing education stipends. 
• One of the most desirable benefits among all employees — particularly those who go into offices to work — is a four-day work week.  
• If companies do not take the idea of updating benefits seriously, they will contribute to the acceleration of the Great Resignation, at their own risk.   

Traditionally, job benefits include a package of 401K contributions and various types of health insurance. However, the pandemic’s effect on the world of work has substantially expanded the definition of work benefits to include things like flexible work options.   

Remote workers, in particular, are interested in benefits packages that include flexible hours, receiving performance bonuses, access to online courses, and contributing education stipends. 

Some of the additional benefits remote workers desire are compensation for work supplies, such as internet reimbursement, and a home office stipend.  

One of the most desirable benefits among all employees — particularly those who go into offices to work — is a four-day work week.  

Employers and employees profit from expanding benefits packages 

How essential is it for companies to consider these requests for expanded benefits? This depends on how much companies value retaining their workforce. Assuming that is something most companies care about, they should seriously consider expanding benefits. 

If companies do not take the idea of updating benefits seriously, they will contribute to the acceleration of the Great Resignation at their own risk. And as things stand, it is clear that many companies are not taking the idea of updating benefits seriously enough.  

According to a recent survey of 1,000 employees across the United States conducted by Paychex, 64% of employees whose company had updated their benefits have no plans to leave within the next year, as opposed to only 47% of those whose benefits hadn’t changed. 

In other words, a statistically significant percentage of workers will plan to leave their companies if they do not provide updates to benefits — particularly as they pertain to the new norm of remote work. After shifting to remote work, employee satisfaction with benefits decreased by 21%.  

Expanding benefits does more good than just increasing employee retention, however. It also makes for a better workplace. 

In many areas, when benefits are expanded to employees’ satisfaction, employees report improvements. For example, employees report 73% improvements in productivity, 65% in job satisfaction, 58% in employee diversity, 56% in company loyalty, and 49% in company culture.  

Employers from companies with expanded benefits report similar improvements; 67% in employee morale, 63% in productivity, 50% in company culture, 43% in company diversity, and 43% in employee retention.  

Expanding benefits will slow the Great Resignation, and ignoring the need for benefits will speed it up  

Given the effect that the expansion of benefits packages or the lack thereof has on employee retention, if employers expand benefits they will help to slow the Great Resignation, and if they don’t, they will help to speed it up.   

When a company fails to enact a policy that — according to employees and employers alike — improves employee morale, productivity, and company culture, it will inevitably reduce the workplace’s quality for all its inhabitants, both in terms of well-being and productivity.   

It reasonably follows, therefore, why a failure to expand benefits is highly correlated with reduced employee retention. When a workplace’s quality is reduced because workers’ needs are ignored, employees feel undervalued and keener to work elsewhere.  

Despite recent evidence alluding to the power of increasing wages, the original drive of the Great Resignation has not entirely changed. A priority of modern workers now is increasingly doing work that is meaningful and working for a company that treats its workers well.   

The companies that succeeded the most in improving workplace quality through expanding benefits consulted their employees on their needs before having gone through with enacting new benefits packages.   

Knowing who works for you and what they need to feel their best and do their best pays off because it makes workers reliably happier and more productive. 

Increasingly, employees and job applicants will begin to expect expanded benefits mentioned above. If employers are interested in improving workplace quality and employee retention, their best action is to consult their employees and expand benefits accordingly.