As the economy improves, more people are beginning to leave their jobs of their own volition. What’s worse, the people who are leaving aren’t the slackers to whom you would love to give a pink slip. In a recent WorkForces Report, Aflac notes that the individuals who describe themselves as likely to leave their current position are hard-working, highly educated, high-achievers.
Providing a competitive benefits package is a sure way to curtail financially motivated attrition. Going the extra mile with your benefits packages can increase employee’s perceptions of your company as one that goes out of its way to take care of worker’s needs – in other words, a company that only a fool would leave.
Do not make the mistake of focusing all your efforts on health care packages. Employees are strongly influenced by generous retirement plans as well as dental, life and disability insurance, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. If your company cannot absorb the cost of paying for all of these benefits, you can still leverage them. Simply having the option to participate in benefit plans at cost to themselves is often better for employees than not having these resources available at all.
Having an excellent benefits package also protects you from some of the worst effects of the occasional employee departure. Maintaining a reputation as a business that takes care of people ensures that you’ll spend less time recruiting and more time interviewing qualified candidates that may require less training.
Once you have put together a healthy benefits package, do not keep it a secret that only the human resources department knows. Widely publicize what is available, and offer assistance to employees so they can understand and access what you are offering.
