As benefits renewal season approaches, human resources teams face the huge task of designing competitive yet cost-effective employee compensation and benefits packages that attract talent and motivate existing employees. However, building a successful strategy is difficult without a clear understanding of the actual needs of your workforce.
Gathering early employee feedback allows employers to identify underutilized perks, shifting priorities, and current frustrations before plan designs are locked in. You should actively listen to your staff to create a benefits strategy that boosts satisfaction, maximizes ROI, and communicates employee value.
3 Critical Dangers of Employee Benefits Misalignment
Gathering feedback helps you align your benefits strategy with the needs and desires of your workforce. When you miss this crucial step in the process, you can experience three undesirable effects.
1. Resource Waste
Without the right benefits, you’ll spend thousands, even millions, on underutilized perks, and HR teams will likely waste valuable time that could be used for more strategic work on managing benefits packages. Misaligned benefits also mean incurring higher recruitment costs, as you’ll have to replace employees who leave for better benefits.
2. Talent Drain
Gallup data cites poor employee compensation or benefits as the top reason for employee dissatisfaction, with 54% saying that a significant improvement in their benefits package is highly important when considering whether to take a job with a different organization.
Not acting on benefits-related feedback makes it easy for competitors with more modern benefits to lure away top candidates and performers.
3. Decreased Engagement
Without sufficient employee benefits, your workforce may feel undervalued, leading to a dip in morale as employees put in minimal daily effort. As employee exhaustion and burnout accelerate, expenses begin to mount.
Studies show that poor employee well-being costs U.S. companies a collective $322 billion in turnover and lost productivity and $20 million in additional lost opportunity per 10,000 workers.
Feedback Methods to Re-Align Your Employee Compensation and Benefits Strategy With Workforce Needs
Don’t go into the benefits renewal season unprepared. Use these actionable strategies to gather feedback, extract insights, and improve your approach to employee benefits design.
Survey Your Current Employees
Consider using short pulse surveys on specific topics to find out what benefits your employees like (and don’t like) and if there’s anything they would like to see added to the package. Critical topics may include:
- Perceived Value: Ranking current benefits from most valuable to completely unnecessary
- Financial Stress: Assessing current satisfaction with deductibles, premiums, and out-of-pocket limits
- Wellness Gaps: Identifying mental health, fertility, or childcare support needs missing from packages
You may want to host focus groups to get qualitative data that paints a fuller picture of what employees need and want. It’s also a good idea to check in with new hires during and after the onboarding process to find out whether they’re satisfied with and able to properly access their benefits.
Monitor Your Online Reputation
Monitoring your online reputation can reveal honest and unfiltered employee feedback that standard internal surveys often miss.
Departed staff (and current employees acting under the benefit of anonymity) may list the exact benefit gaps that caused them to consider leaving. Multiple mentions of “bad health insurance” or “no work-life balance” can help you pinpoint systemic benefits issues that need a closer look.
Additionally, monitoring online reviews can help you benchmark your benefits against your competitors. Reviews and social media posts may reveal which benefits are a differentiator, which are pushing candidates to choose competitor offers, and whether your employee benefits seem outdated.
Gather Essential Data
Though not a formal survey, your human resources information system can offer a treasure trove of information to help you tailor your employee benefits strategy, including the ages, life stages, and caregiving responsibilities of your workforce.
For example, a staff with many early-career professionals may value student loan repayment options, while mid-career professionals may desire housing assistance or paid parental leave.
Reports from vendors and brokers can also help you spot benefits with under 10% utilization. Paired with survey data, this allows you to identify unpopular benefits that can be replaced with more requested perks.
Empower Your Employee Benefits Strategy for Future Success
Creating a benefits package that aligns with what employees want doesn’t have to be a guessing game. By gathering feedback early, you can gain the data and insight you need to build a benefits package that genuinely supports your workforce while optimizing your ROI.
Are you ready to move from reactive to proactive benefits planning? Contact our Benefits Advisory Group team today to see how we can help you design tailored, cost-effective plans that drive satisfaction and retention.