Now more than ever, it is a challenge for companies to attract — and even more, retain — the best talent in their industry. Highly skilled employees are widely sought after regardless of industry, and whether they stay with a company often comes down to two factors: how much are they paid for their work, and what are the benefits they receive on top of their pay. In fact, 50% of employees say they’d consider taking a job with another company if the benefit package was better.
Taking the time to analyze your current plan and how you can make it more competitive is crucial. If you are offering better benefits than your competitors, you can hire and retain the most talented employees. And if you can offer these better benefits for less cost to you and your employees, your advantage is even greater.
How Do I Offer a Competitive Benefit Package?
To truly offer the most competitive benefit package in your industry, you may need to modify your current plan. While this seems like a gargantuan task given the level of time needed to implement and maintain a benefit plan, it often just requires tapping into your finest source of data: your current employees.
Here’s how you incorporate the voice of your employees into your benefit package.
Mine Data with Employee Surveys
Create a strategic survey to distribute to your full-time, benefit-eligible employees that tracks what they currently like, don’t like and ultimately are looking for in their ideal benefit plan. This gives you insight into what you can cut from your benefit plan to save money, and where you can reinvest that money to support more in-demand programs and offerings.
Audit Claims From the Past 18 Months with Your Current Plan
Do you understand just how much you and your employees are paying for doctor’s office visits, prescriptions, procedures and more? Or are you relying purely on your current broker to provide this information? With employee benefits being the second-highest expense each year for companies, you need to actively follow where your investment is going to preserve the financial health of your company. Here at Waypoint Benefit Solutions, we’ve seen companies cut employee out-of-pocket costs by up to 20% and employee paycheck contributions by 10% by auditing claims.
Reinvest the Savings From Your Audit Into a Better Benefit Offering
Now that you’ve identified areas of savings for your company, you can reinvest this money into what your employees are actually looking for in a plan. Or, if your employees are satisfied with their current offering, you can reinvest this money back into your bottom line and save money in your budget for the fiscal year.
The Value of Transparency in Healthcare
If you ultimately are looking to switch brokers to improve your employee benefit package, consider switching to a broker committed to transparency in healthcare. For example, instead of working with a broker that utilizes a traditional preferred provider organization, examine brokers that take a direct-relationship approach with healthcare providers.
This will provide your employees with greater options for medical care and service, and lower both employer and employee costs. At Waypoint Benefit Solutions, we’ve seen member groups save up to 40% on their health insurance costs by switching to a direct-relationship model like ClearChain Health.
How Will This Impact Employee Satisfaction?
If employees are more satisfied with their benefit package and the coverage they receive, employee satisfaction will increase. Since a happy team is a hardworking team, this ultimately leads to higher employee productivity and long-term satisfaction. Your company will attract the new talent you want and retain the current employees you have by providing a robust, fulfilling benefit package.
Ready to Attract and Retain the Talent You Want?
At Waypoint Benefit Solutions, we specialize in data-driven, customized solutions for companies in need of a benefit overhaul. We believe in transparency in benefit plans, and use our unique employee surveys and data-mining processes to remove conflicts of interest, hidden costs and excessive charges traditional brokers overlook. Learn more about our better benefits and lower costs by scheduling an introductory call today!