Employee benefits: How to take a human-first approach?
30 de September, 2024
The workforce is changing. It’s no news that, in today’s job market, employees have very specific expectations of organizations and of issues such as flexibility, work-life integration or diversity and inclusion. And the same goes for benefits packages.
A universal approach to the granting of extra-wage benefits, which does not take into account the specificities and needs of each individual, will increasingly lose its relevance and effectiveness.
Instead, companies should focus their efforts on developing flexible, people-centered benefit plans. But what does it mean, in practice, to adopt a human-first approach to the allocation of non-salary benefits?
Read also: Guide to creating a flexible benefits plan in your company
Human-first means personalization
As consumers, we want brands to provide us with a personalized experience, i.e. one that is tailored to our interests and needs. And this also applies to our role as employees of a company.
When designing their benefits plans, organizations must necessarily consider the individual expectations and needs of each employee.
This is even more important in a context where companies are made up of an increasingly diverse group of people. The existence of employees from different generations, with different backgrounds and objectives, reinforces the need to customize benefit plans to the level of the individual.
How to design benefit plans centered on the individual?
1 – Consider your employees’ demographic and psychographic data
Adopting a human-first approach when developing extra-salary benefit plans means getting to know your employees. And, in particular, knowing some of their demographic and psychographic information.
How old are the employees? How are their households made up? What is their level of education? What is their lifestyle like? What are their personal and professional aspirations and goals?
Gathering this information, identifying and taking into account the particularities that distinguish people, will enable your company to design benefits packages that are more in line with the life stages and interests of each employee.
2 – Listen to your employees
Listening to employees is a key element in the process of creating an extra-salary benefits plan (and, indeed, in any process within an organization).
There’s nothing better than asking people what they value so that the benefits granted are really useful and relevant. There’s no point in giving benefits that don’t add any value and that people end up not using.
In addition, by involving employees, you are also conveying that their opinions are important and are taken into account in decision-making.
3 – Take advantage of technology and data
Technology and the power of data will take on an increasingly central role in human resources management. HR professionals must be prepared to make the most of technology so that they can reduce the burden of administrative tasks, scale their operations and also develop flexible and personalized benefits plans.
By collecting and working with employee data, companies must be able to understand the main needs, expectations and interests of each individual. And, on the basis of this analysis, define relevant benefits packages for the different employees.
They must also be able to evaluate the success of their benefits policy and identify opportunities for improvement, so that they can add value continuously and consistently.
4 – Offer flexibility
The trend is for organizations to incorporate more and more adaptable work structures, meeting the desire for flexibility on the part of employees.
This flexibility must be granted at the level of the working arrangements practiced in the company (hybrid or remote arrangements, where possible and valued by the workers), but also at the level of the extra-wage benefits granted.
Employees want to be able to use their benefits where it is most useful and convenient for them, according to their interests, needs, life stages and objectives – whether they are more immediate or medium/long-term.
For example, with Edenred Flexível, employees can decide to use the money they receive on books and school supplies for their children, an English course for themselves, health and wellness expenses or nursing home fees for relatives, for example. And these are just some of the possibilities.
5 – Put employee well-being first
Companies with a people first culture put the health – physical and mental – of their employees at the heart of their concerns, developing programs and concrete measures to promote it. And this should also involve the benefits awarded.
In fact, employees themselves expect organizations to look after their health and well-being in a holistic way, through all the aspects that are part of the employee experience.
That’s why a benefits plan that focuses on the individual must necessarily help to improve their physical and mental well-being, as well as their social and financial well-being. In practice, it should facilitate access to health care (for the employee themselves, but also for family members), help promote healthier habits and maximize purchasing power for essential services.
6 – Ensure inclusion
Firstly, extra-wage benefits packages must take into account the first principle of equality. In other words, they must not be discriminatory or give rise to unequal treatment for people who are in the same position (employees in the same job or in the same professional category, for example).
In addition, benefits must embody the company’s own culture of diversity and inclusion. It is essential to ensure that the granting of benefits recognizes, respects and does not discriminate against the individuality of each employee, regardless of their age, gender, nationality, among other characteristics.
Alongside all this, ensure that your company’s benefits package complies with social benefits legislation. Having a human first approach also means knowing the legislation and giving employees the assurance that all legal and tax requirements are being met.