HR teams spend countless hours developing the best possible benefits packages for their people. Despite these monumental efforts and communications, employees often aren’t aware of all the benefits at their disposal. With the understanding that every organization is different and employment statuses vary, People Teams are putting extra emphasis on creative benefits to stay competitive in the talent acquisition landscape.
More progressive benefits like the fertility benefits Carrot offers or the leave of absence management support we provide at Tilt are wonderful ways to show your employees that your organization is thinking about its people first and foremost. Because of these exciting and forward-thinking benefits getting deserved shine in the headlines, sometimes the more common benefits get lost in the shuffle.
The 5 benefits below are some common benefits (we know not every organization offers these, but a majority do and for the sake of the exercise…) that employees might not be aware they have, and can serve as a good reminder to educate and reinforce all the ways your organization helps support your people, not just the latest cutting-edge perks.
1. Education Assistance or Tuition Reimbursement.
According to SHRM – 83% of companies offer some sort of educational assistance or tuition reimbursement program. While that’s a wonderful statistic, only 5% of employees seem to take them up on it. Of course, not every employee wants or necessarily needs education assistance or tuition reimbursement, but the large discrepancy in the percentage of employees who take advantage of the opportunity should be viewed as an opportunity to remind your employees of this helpful benefit.
2. Legal & Financial Assistance
With hectic life schedules and burdensome workloads it’s sometimes easy to put financial planning on the back burner. Many organizations offer some sort of legal and financial assistance (oftentimes through 401k providers or other financial education programs) that their employees don’t know about it.
This benefit can help employees answer tough questions that directly impact their quality of life such as how much should they be saving if they want to retire at 65. Supporting your employees in reaching their financial goals is a great way to establish trust and understanding of their long-term plans.
3. Paid Leave
Many employees, in particular the ones who have recently entered the workforce, aren’t aware of all the reasons they can take paid leave under state leave laws or your company’s policies, which may include family and medical leave, organ or bone marrow donation leave, bereavement leave, school visitation leave, or crime witness/victim leave, just to name a few. While these leave programs are an extremely helpful benefit to employees in their time of need, it can be tricky for HR teams to manage them properly.
If navigating the ins and outs of FMLA, state paid leave programs, short-term disability benefits and your own paid leave programs stretches you beyond the limits of your bandwidth, LOA management providers can be a great external resource to make your employees’ lives easier when taking advantage of the paid leave benefits available to them.
4. Work-Life Assistance
Roughly 80% of companies with more than 50 employees offer some sort of health and wellness benefit for their employees. Yours might be one of them, and if so it can be highly advantageous to encourage your employees to capitalize on this benefit. Not only is promoting health and wellness important for the well-being of your people, 72% of employers saw a reduction in healthcare costs after implementing a wellness program.
5. Time Off to Vote
While federal law doesn’t require employers to give employees time off to vote, 29 states do, and 23 of those states require that employers pay their employees for that time. Of course employers can and may (and should in our opinion) provide paid time off for their employees to vote, but this is a benefit that widely flies under the rader for many employees. If you operate in a state with this benefit or have your own policy in place, let your people know!
About Tilt
Tilt is leading the charge in all things leave of absence management through easy-to-use tech and human touch. Since 2017, our proprietary platform and Empathy Warriors have been helping customers make leave not suck by eliminating administrative burdens, keeping companies compliant, and providing a truly positive and supportive leave of absence experience for their people.
