Anyone that runs a business and employs people will undoubtedly offer some workplace incentives or “perks” as bonuses. Some of those perks are fantastic and are useful things for all employees to enjoy. In contrast, others are just downright pointless.
If you’re reviewing the perks that you offer to your employees, you might be wondering which ones to keep or incorporate, and which ones you should avoid. With that in mind, here are some of the best – and worst – employee benefits that you need to know for your business:
Good: healthcare insurance
Arguably one of the best perks you could offer to all your employees is healthcare insurance. That’s because there will be times in each employee’s life where they need to seek medical attention.
When employees know they won’t have to sell their vital organs to fund medical consultations and treatments, they’ll feel more secure. Plus, healthcare benefits can heavily sway a person’s decision to come and work for you instead of a competing business.
Bad: vision insurance
You might be wondering why offering your employees vision insurance is a bad thing. Especially those that spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen each day. The truth is, vision insurance is complicated and often doesn’t save people much money.
The smart choice for employees would be to simply save some money into an HSA (health savings account). They can then use that to cover the cost of eye tests and new eyeglasses and other medical fees.
Good: life insurance
Thinking about life after you’re no longer around isn’t something people relish. However, when you have dependents such as a spouse and children, it’s crucial to consider their financial future and how they’d survive when you die.
As you can imagine, life insurance is an excellent perk of any employment. Firms that offer free life insurance to their staff help ease the post-death financial burden that many families, unfortunately, have to endure.
Bad: unlimited holiday time
At first glance, working somewhere that doesn’t limit the amount of time you can take off sounds amazing. You could take an entire month off, and it would be fine because you aren’t fixed to a specific amount of days each year.
The reality of unlimited holiday time is somewhat different. Often, employees end up taking off less time than they should. That’s because they fear they might go over an “unknown” holiday quota.
Good: flexible working hours
Lastly, when you’re single and live alone, you don’t have to worry about when you need to start work or finish. There are no family commitments to consider; you can do whatever you wish and all will be good with the world.
But, when you have dependents at home, you typically have to fit things around them. One primary example is taking your kids to school and picking them up again in the afternoon. In those situations, flexible working hours is a welcome perk of any job.
