Companies continually vie for loyalty not only from their customers but also from their employees. And it’s a highly competitive market, especially since the modern employee knows their value and is clear about what they want out of a job. This is why retention is a common challenge that organizations face today.
Many organizations believe that offering job perks is an important component of their attraction and retention efforts, but not all are up to speed with this – especially when it comes to new rewards which are ‘personalized, agile and holistic’, according to Deloitte. In one of their studies, we see that 77% of organizations rate new rewards as ‘very important’ or ‘important’ but only 37% report being ‘very ready’ or ‘ready’ to meet expectations.
So, do job perks succeed in attracting employees?
Even though many organizations are not yet ready to meet employees’ new rewards expectations, it doesn’t mean that the risk of losing great employees to other organizations with appealing benefits is low.
In fact, Gallup reports that one-third of American workers would leave their current employer for more attractive benefits and perks elsewhere. And it seems that employees (especially Millennials, who are now the largest generation in the US workforce) are drawn to perks that support their quality of life.
The perks that attract employees
Typical perks range from medical cover, retirement benefits, paid memberships, employee discounts, and conference attendance to flexible vacation policies, wellness programs, continuous learning opportunities, mentoring, childcare, and paid maternity or paternity leave, to name just a few.
Here’s an overview of common benefits and perks that organizations offer.
But, generally speaking, today’s employees are most attracted to rewards that are personalized, and are appropriate to their circumstances, their age and their quality of life.
This is particularly true among Millennials, as the following breakdown shows.
And, what about retaining employees – do perks help?
While perks (especially new rewards) seemingly succeed in attracting employees, and undoubtedly go a long way in increasing contentment, they’re not all a company needs to retain its top talent.
Only one-third of employees are engaged at work, according to Gallup, whereas 16% are actively disengaged (in other words, they’re quite likely miserable at work) and 51% are not engaged (they’re just there).
Of course, the chances of losing people who are disengaged or not engaged to tempting perks elsewhere is undoubtedly much higher than losing those who are engaged, driven and invested in making a difference; those who feel loyal to your organization.
Does this negate the benefit of offering employees perks? No. It simply means that there is far more to be done to retain employees beyond rewarding them.
Retain employees with ongoing efforts
Organizations need to develop turnover prevention strategies that integrate, advance, and include employees.
From the point of hiring new employees and throughout the employee lifecycle, organizations need to be involved in retention efforts. This can be done by:
- Onboarding employees with a new hire integration plan, helping them become happy, productive and high-performing individuals as soon as possible.
- Nurturing employees with real-time feedback, guiding them to course correct where necessary and offering them recognition when its due.
- Investing in them by helping them draw up a career roadmap, supporting their professional development.
- Advancing employees through continuous learning opportunities, giving them the chance to expand their knowledge.
- Growing their skills through internal gig opportunities, and helping them broaden their interests and abilities that they can feed back into your organization.
- Including them by creating a work environment that empowers people from all walks of life.
Future-ready rewards and retention solutions
Get ahead of the curve by investigating the rewards your employees really desire. What will set your organization apart, and attract modern employees who are after personalization, autonomy, flexibility and work-life balance? Job perks can no longer be implemented with a one-size-fits-all approach.
As for ensuring that you don’t lose the great people you attract, there is advanced HR technology, like ours, that can help you integrate, advance, include and – most importantly – retain top talent.