What if you were forced to go where you don’t want to go on vacation?
14 de August, 2018
Vacations are a recurring and desirable topic among work colleagues. Every year, in the pre- or post-holiday period, we exchange views on our vacation destinations, the experiences we’ve had (gastronomic, cultural, leisure, etc.), the cultural habits we know or hope to get to know in more detail, among many other aspects related to the vacation lexicon. Collaboration between multigenerational and multicultural teams in the same organization is increasingly a reality and reinforces the fact that the right to vacations is exercised, even if it is organized in collaboration with the company, by each of us in a very personal way. The presence of multiple generations in an organization’s workforce and, in some cases, spread across different geographies, as acknowledged, makes it imperative to have different responses to different needs with regard to social benefits, since the needs of each of them are naturally different. The possibility that vacation entitlements can be exercised according to the specific needs of each employee should therefore also be increasingly transposed to social benefits, i.e. in the same way that vacations can be enjoyed by each of us in different destinations (beach, mountain, etc.), occasions (Christmas, winter, Easter, summer, Carnival, etc.) and with different people (family, alone, among friends, etc.), social benefits should also reflect the different needs of each employee. A single employee, for example, would probably prefer to receive an ‘Incentives and Rewards’ benefit, compared to his colleague who, having recently become a father, would opt for a ‘Childcare’ benefit.
The social benefits statute
As a world leader in transactional solutions, Edenred Portugal has been following this reality and developing actions to influence political, social and economic agents so that, in the future, there will be a social benefits statute that allows these benefits to be “seen” as needs as distinct as each employee’s vacation.
The different solutions offered by Edenred today – Euroticket Creche and Euroticket Estudante – already reflect this vision. However, in order to minimize the constraints on obtaining this status, we still have a long way to go. Once the status of social benefits is fully achieved, Human Resources managers and the organizations in which they work will gain a competitive advantage in the implementation of their social benefits policy. In this sphere, they will not only be able to recognize, but also have the necessary capacity to manage the generational and cultural diversity of their teams, by identifying and supporting the specificities of each employee and their family.
Next year, and for many of us this year, we will be exercising our right to a vacation, without being tied to a destination that has been or will be chosen in advance by someone else. But have you ever thought if you were forced to go where you don’t want to go on vacation? Each of us goes on vacation to the destination we choose. Why isn’t that the same rationale for social benefits?
Starting from July 2023, Euroticket benefits have been renamed Edenred.