Kevin Jeffrey: Principal, Pointbreak Consulting Group Ltd.
Let's start with another question: why provide a benefits package to your employees?
The honest, and specific, answer to this question will help you determine what to offer, whether yours is a new benefit plan or you are reviewing an existing one.
Is it to keep up with competitors? To get ahead of your competitors? Do you feel a need to look after your employees? Do you want to diversify the compensation package? Or any other reasons – as long as the reasons are valid and specific to your organization.
Next question – who are my target employees?
Once you have those employees in mind, then you can begin to choose the "right" package to offer. If you are hiring a predominantly younger cohort, pension benefits might not be a big attractor, but wellness benefits could be. If you are hiring primarily mid-career engineers, orthodontics and life insurance might be highly attractive, but an office ping-pong table might not be.
Ideally, you would like to be able to offer every benefit under the sun. However, the cost of this approach is not practical.
Traditional benefits packages include health and dental coverage, disability protection, life and accident insurance, and savings or pension plans. These benefits range from very rich to just the basics and can total from 10% to 25% of pay. This is why it's crucial to target your plan.
More specific benefits include wellness plans, critical illness insurance, medical access insurance, mortgage benefits, health spending accounts, employee assistance plans and flexible spending accounts.
So is a benefits package a good investment? The answer is a qualified yes – the "right" benefits package is the one that attracts and retains the employees you need to drive your organization forward.
Joanna Whalley: Assistant vice-president, people services, Westminster Savings Credit Union
The concept of total compensation package has evolved. While salary is important to remain competitive, a total compensation package offers benefits beyond pay, which can increase an organization's attractiveness to potential employees.
Essentially, an effective package is made up of two primary parts: tangible (salary, incentives and health benefits) and intangible (the non-monetary aspects, which people are assessing more and more these days).
Below are examples of intangible benefits to consider as part of your total compensation package.
•An organization's culture is an important element that shapes work satisfaction, relationships and processes. Providing an environment that is consistent with the values of employees will keep them motivated.
•Core values underpin the work an organization does and forms its foundation. For example, employees may view an organization with core values of "integrity, caring, teamwork, innovation" as one that fosters a team-oriented environment where motivated employees thrive, welcomes ideas and believes in doing the right thing for employees, customers and the community. Having a solid foundation of core values is important in acquiring and motivating talent.
•Provide employees with personal and career enrichment opportunities by giving them a platform to share feedback, empowering them to make decisions, offering career paths in different business areas and encouraging community involvement by connecting them with philanthropic organizations in their communities.
•Employees are also parents, spouses, friends, caregivers and/or volunteers. Offering flexible hours and telecommuting options will help in balancing their work and life commitments.
Ryan Ward: Director, human resources, GRIP Corp.
First, it is important to take a step back and figure out what your benefit objective is. Then engage your employees, do your research and work with a benefit consultant to understand what is out there and what will fit with your compensation strategy.
When designing a benefits plan, I look at four things: employee appreciation, flexibility, cost controls and administration.
Employee appreciation: benefits are expensive and should be considered part of an employee's total compensation. If employees do not recognize the value they are receiving, either education is required or you are not offering what your employees consider important.
Flexibility: different employee groups are looking for different things out of a plan. Having some choice in your benefit plan, even if the choice may increase an employee contribution, will be beneficial in the long term.
Cost control: certain elements can be built in to ensure the plan will be sustainable and not too expensive on renewal. Several things to consider include:
•Going to a fixed-dollar contribution amount rather than a percentage. This way the company contribution can stay fixed when increases are incurred.
•Having a dispensing fee – a consumption-based fee will ensure the heavy users are paying their share.
•Building a health-care spending account into the plan that can be adjusted based on the overall cost or experience ratio.
Administration: the time to administer the plan, pay the bills and sign employees up is often forgotten when designing the plan. Understanding what tools the benefit providers have to ease administration or how to set up a plan to fit your own internal systems will save money and time in the long run.
