Benefits to the business

No or low cost

Employers can offer voluntary benefits at no direct cost (i.e. 100% employee-paid), leaving them with just the cost of administration.

A way to control rising health care costs

With the cost of health care on the rise, employers are starting to shy away from providing top end, ‘cover all’ primary health care benefits. Instead, they are choosing less expensive coverage and offering workers a wider range of voluntary health benefits to help fill the gaps.

Attracting and keeping top talent

Employers, especially small businesses where key members of staff can be crucial to the success of the company, are looking for effective ways to retain their staff and recruit the best talent. In fact, according to Gallup economy, employee hiring and retention remains among the top five most important challenges facing business owners¹.

Voluntary benefit plans help smaller businesses compete with larger competitors by enabling the provision of a variety of benefits to help them stand out in the war for talent. They can also be a useful tool in employee retention: a benefits package that an employee has chosen and that’s tailored to their changing needs is difficult to give up.

Help with telling your staff – at no direct cost

There’s no point offering benefits if your employees don’t know about them. Communicating employee benefits can be tricky, but with voluntary benefits, some carriers will gladly help with communicating the benefit offerings to employees, either by using tried and trusted support tools, visiting the business for group meetings, or even meeting one-on-one with each employee to help review their own personal needs and best matches for benefits. These meetings may include details about what the benefit provides, a Q&A session and helping both the employer and employee with the actual enrollment process — usually at no direct cost to the employer.

• 77% of workers say the benefits package is an important factor in their decision to accept or reject a job.
  Source: EBRI, Views on the Value of Voluntary Workplace Benefits: Findings from the 2015 Health and Voluntary Workplace Benefits Survey, 2015
• 63% of employees say that benefits are one of the reasons they work where they do.
  Source: Mercer, Inside Employees’ Minds, 2015

Highest regards,

Stacia

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