Job Benefits That Increase Employee Satisfaction

Guess pots by Gemma Hunt Carswell – A job that they will enjoy and a good level of financial remuneration are the main factors that most individuals look for when they are thinking of leaving their current employment and joining a new firm. However if you are a new start-up company, or a more established company still clawing their way out of the recession then you may not be able to offer as competitive a salary as you would like, and you may fear that these means that you will miss out on the brightest and best candidates joining your firm. However there are many other factors that can help to make your business look like an attractive proposition to a potential employee. You may not be able to compete with Apple of Google, offering your staff Olympic-sized pools and gyms on site and executive chefs to cook their daily lunch, but here are three affordable job benefits that will increase employee satisfaction:

Flexible Working Hours and Locations

Working from home or in a combination of home and office locations is becoming increasingly popular, with the most recent statistics reported in Forbes Magazine suggesting that an incredible one in five people in the United States currently work from home or out of a home office at least one day a week. Flexible working locations and flexible working hours are one of the most attractive benefits that you can offer to your employees if you’re on a budget: this actually doesn’t have to cost you anything to set up but will leave your employees free to find the work/life balance that is right for them. This kind of working policy is particularly attractive to employees with young families and many will choose to stay in a job that pays less if it offers this kind of flexibility, as they place so much value on the quality of life it affords them outside of the workplace. Many people mistakenly assume that offices that offer flexible working hours and locations have a lesser work ethic or don’t get as much achieved during the working week but, actually, the opposite seems to be true. Many firms offering this kind of policy have found that giving their employees the option of flexibility actually enables work to be completed quicker, with less working hours lost unnecessarily.

Insurance Benefits

Insurance coverage and related benefits are always going to be well received by employees who are looking for security and protection not only for themselves, but for their families too. Medical insurance and dental insurance coverage policies are the policies that most employees immediately look out for when they join a company, and for many employees are more important than a small increase in salary, but life insurance (to ensure that their family is protected should the worst happen) is an equally attractive benefit, as well as being a much more affordable benefit for employers to provide and offer to their employees. However these policies (particularly a good standard of medical coverage) can be very expensive to secure independently, so they have a huge amount of value to employees and therefore a good level of health coverage with the lowest amounts of out of pocket costs to your employees can be harnessed and utilised to help companies with smaller budgets to secure the very best employees.

Health and Wellness Benefits                         

Whilst following in the footsteps of many of the larger corporations and building a gym on your premises may not be possible, it is possible to still ensure that you provide benefits that will cater to your employees health and wellness needs. Gym membership packages, for example, are an affordable but increasingly attractive company perk, and have the added bonus of keeping your employees fit and healthy, which could actually benefit your firm in the long run by limiting the number of days off due to sickness that that employee is likely to take. If you can find a gym close to your premises, it will allow your employees to work out before or after work, and even during their lunchbreaks, leaving them feeling revitalised and ready to face the challenges of the rest of the day ahead.