The Value of a Great Health Care Experience for Your Business
By Tina Snortum
It happens every year like clockwork: benefits renewal season. You and your team consider what health care plan makes the most sense for your company, weighing factors like coverage, quality and of course, cost.
You want to save money, but the final dollar amount isn’t the only metric for measuring the value that your health care plan can bring to your business.
Consider these additional benefits:
Attract New Talent
Even if you can afford to pay top dollar, salary isn’t the only factor that candidates consider when evaluating a job offer.
If employees will be compensated less, then they value their health care benefits even more. According to Aflac, 55% of employees would consider accepting a job offer for lower compensation in exchange for a more robust benefits package.
If you can promise talent a stronger benefit offering than the competition, it could mean the difference between hiring a stellar new employee or losing them.
Retain Existing Talent
While you want to remain competitive in recruiting new employees, remember that replacing an employee who left can cost 1.5 to 2 times the departing employee’s salary. These turnover costs add up fast, especially considering the lost productivity inherent in training a new employee.
Some quick facts about the importance of benefits for retaining employees:
- According to a LinkedIn study, companies that rated highly on compensation and benefits saw 56% lower attrition.
- A Zoro survey found 72% of employees said having more work benefits would increase their job satisfaction.
- 80% of workers would keep a job with benefits rather than take one that offered more pay and no benefits.
Better Employee Physical and Mental Health
A stronger health care offering leads to employees and dependents who are healthier both physically and mentally. Healthy employees are more productive, less prone to errors and accidents and are more engaged with the workplace. Healthy employees (and their healthy families) are also much less costly because they’re more likely to receive preventive care to address any issues.
In recent years, companies have moved beyond simply providing an employer-sponsored health care plan to investing in their employees’ health with wellness programming.
Improve Workplace Culture
Bettering a team’s physical and mental health requires creating a culture of health within the workplace. Your benefits offering may be only one component of creating that culture, but it serves as the cornerstone.
The health benefits you provide to employees sends a signal for how much the company values their health and wellness.
Improve Your Bottom Line
While you would rather focus on improving an internal process or strengthening a customer relationship to increase revenue, adjusting the benefits plan can be just as impactful on the bottom line.
In a fully funded model, 15% to 20% of premium payments to large carriers go towards plan administration and insurer profits. Because your company doesn’t have to compensate a third-party insurer, you can charge lower premiums, which can be beneficial for employees.
