One of the most underrated factors of a company is the fringe benefits that they offer. Is this because they are really less valuable, or simply because employees aren’t fully informed of them? Many companies tend to put more weight on what kind of salaries they offer, leading to the overshadowing of employee benefits.
In reality, benefits are at the forefront of employees’ minds. In fact, 80 percent of employees state that a competitive benefits plan is enough to make them stay at their current job. Ten percent of them even claim that benefits are the most important factor for them when deciding whether or not to take a job.
For this reason, companies should put a lot of effort towards properly communicating their various fringe benefits to employees. Here are the best ways to get your employees to actually learn about the fringe benefits that your company offers.
Tailor the Message to the Audience
Every company likely has a large percentage of their employees belonging to a specific generation. For example, any technology-based company is likely going to have the majority of their employees belonging to the Millennial generation.
This is crucial information that should be looked at when communicating fringe benefits. If you are using the wrong type of communication methods for your employees, they aren’t going to be engaged with the message you are relaying, even if it would be valuable for them to hear.
If your company is largely made of Baby Boomers, utilizing employee meetings might be the best way to communicate fringe benefits. However, when dealing with mostly Millennials, email and other digital mediums should be the primary source of communication.
Be Transparent About Changes
When any changes are made to the company's employee benefits, this information needs to be communicated to the employees right away. However, it is usually not enough to simply inform them of the change. Many employees will also want to know the reason behind the change.
Lacking this transparency may result in the employees trusting the company less. That is why you should be upfront about any changes made, as well as the decision-making process behind them. This way, even if some of the employees do not agree with the change, they will at least understand why it was made.
Make It Easy to Find
The list of fringe benefits is not something that employees only need to read once and then never access again. Chances are employees will need to go back and review their benefits multiple times throughout the year. For this reason, it is important to make the process of reviewing benefits as convenient as possible. Do this by hosting the fringe benefits in an area where they are very easy to find and understand.
Sending out the information over email means that employees likely have to search through hundreds or even thousands of emails to find it. Conversely, uploading the benefits to an employee app makes the process of finding it simple and fast.
By following these steps, you can help to make your company's fringe benefits much more easily understood by your employees. Contact us today to get even more help improving other areas of your corporate communication.
