Truth be told. An engaged employee is a productive employee.

53% of workers are not engaged while at work. If you believe this has no impact on their productivity levels, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Employee engagement practices are certainly not a new concept. However, you must be creative to retain your employees and attract new ones. The simplest and the most effective way to do so is to create employee benefits packages. Employee benefits packages enable employees to know the company’s values. The ones whose values align with yours will stay.

If you’re scratching your head in confusion, don’t worry. We’ve listed five employee benefits packages in this article for you to consider. The list would also help the ones looking to upscale their existing packages. Let’s dive right in.

1. Conduct employee engagement surveys

An employee engagement survey is a questionnaire to help you measure how engaged and satisfied your employees feel. It not only helps you know the real sentiments of your employees but also enables you to realize if you need to make changes to your existing work arrangements.

Moreover, employee engagement is intangible unless broken down into questions related to job roles, training & development opportunities, leadership, etc.

Conducting employee engagement surveys at regular intervals helps you in the following ways:

• It gives employees a voice, enabling an opportunity for two-way communication.
• It increases employee engagement as you can create an action plan once you’ve assessed how engaged your employees are.
• It fosters direct organization growth given the company measures such as employee management, satisfaction, development, etc.
• It allows you to gather data for future comparisons.

Engagement surveys are crucial as they help you find common issues your employees may face. However, the results depend on the type of questions you put in the questionnaire. The specific, the better. Ensure you break down questions that focus on employees to get accurate data. Employee engagement directly impacts a company’s profitability and revenue generation.

2. Provide flexibility

The way we work is changing. Flexible work hours. Reduced work days. Paid time off. 73% of employees stated flexible work arrangements increased their work satisfaction. It’s evident from the start that employees perform better when given freedom. It helps them tailor their work to their personal lives smoothly.

Providing flexible work hours would significantly benefit employees holding creative job roles. Such positions are tough to squeeze into a specific set of hours. If your company consists of creative output, put flexible work hours as a must-offer item in the employee benefits package.

If you want to experiment with offering flexibility, try doing the following:

• Offer a 4-day work week by increasing the number of work hours and see how the employees feel about it.
• Measure employee output in terms of deliverables, not the number of hours they put in.
• Consider offering paid time off with a supervisor’s approval.

Flexibility has now become the most preferred option for employees. All upcoming companies offer these options. It helps employees trust you more and be more productive. However, if providing flexible work hours or remote work arrangements feels like a giant leap, consider going hybrid.

Offering remote work also benefits you as it helps you cut significant expenses, making it a win-win situation for everyone.

3. Consider employee well-being

Employee well-being includes physical, financial, psychological, emotional, and social health. Companies must ensure they encourage employees to take care of their health. Specific

staff wellbeing ideas include a spa center, games room, gym memberships, meal allowances that cover healthy food items, etc.

You can even conduct meditation and yoga sessions. When you contribute to your employees’ physical and mental well-being, they’re more likely to feel satisfied with their work and personal lives. As far as mental health issues are concerned, you can even offer insurance coverage and counseling services to employees needing professional support.

A few other ways to encourage employee well-being are:

• Encourage employees to take a leave when they’re not well
• Provide healthy snacks
• Organize outdoor meetings
• Plan fun activities and regular trips
• Encourage employees to take a break/vacation

4. Be lenient with leaves

With remote and hybrid work arrangements aiding employee satisfaction, the preference for flexible leave policies has also increased. Many employers have introduced parental leave policies, giving leaves to both foster and adoptive parents. This increases inclusivity and helps foster trust among you and the employees.

While you can certainly create a 500-page long handbook with stringent leave policies, it is not advisable to do so. You’ll need to make an exception in granting employees leave sometime, and these times call for a solid judgment. So refrain from creating too stringent policies; instead, empower the leaders or supervisors to use good judgment.

Having lenient policies doesn’t mean employees are free to take leave whenever they want. Learn to devise a well-balanced leave policy that meets statutory complaints and helps foster employee engagement.

5. Reimburse commuting

While remote and hybrid work models have taken up space, commuting reimbursements may seem outdated. However, not all jobs can be done from home. If your company requires employees to be on-site, offering commuting reimbursements could be added as an employee benefit.

How you want to reimburse the charges is your call. You can either compensate for their public transportation charges, cover gas and maintenance of employees’ private vehicles, or only cover long-distance travel costs. Doing so shows you care about your employees and wish to help them save more money each month.

Lavishly spending on employees, however, is not the best idea, either. So, like many industries your attention must be on calculating overall labor costs as well.

If your company demands frequent long-distance travel, you could ask employees to file monthly reimbursement claims to streamline the process.

Customize packages as per employees’ needs

The article lists a few employee benefits packages you should consider in 2023. Use all the employee benefits packages mentioned above, or adjust them according to your company employees’ interests and needs.

However, tailoring employee benefits packages depending on the employee’s needs is the best. It’ll give your employees the freedom to choose the benefits package that benefits them the most while also keeping them productive and satisfied. Know your company’s and your employees’ needs to develop customized and concise employee benefits packages. This way, you create a win-win situation for both parties.

Good luck!

Author Bio

Parita Pandya is an Engineer turned Writer. She usually finds herself writing for businesses.  When she is not writing, she is either strumming her guitar or penning her thoughts down on paritapandya.com.