The benefits your company offers directly affects how your current and prospective employees view your company. If you offer a best-in-class benefits package and if the administration of that package is seamless, it will leave your employees with a good impression, more likely to recommend your company, and make your internal operations more efficient.
Your company may have an internal HR team that handles this process already. You may be considering additional hires to help manage your process as your company grows. By following this guide, you can ensure that your employee benefit plan administration is as seamless as possible.
Plan Around Your Goals and Budget
Your employee benefits plan should fit into your company's larger goals. Maybe you have been experiencing high turnover and you want to make improvements to your benefit plan to counteract the turnover. A well-executed and comprehensive benefit plan can also help you attract new hires and be a selling point during the hiring process.
With all that in mind, however, you also need to stay within your budget. Benefits are not cheap, especially healthcare, which can see steep annual increases. It's important that you offer these benefits to your employees but that you do not ignore the effects on your budget.
Besides that, there are also compliance and regulations issues with benefits administration. Not only is it costly to adhere to these laws, but it can also be even more costly to face government fines and employee lawsuits.
Instead of trying to do all this in-house, however, you can outsource your HR benefits administration needs to a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). Offering better benefits at lower costs is just one of the many ways a PEO saves your company money. They are able to get lower rates due to the economies of scale they reach by grouping benefits together. With the right PEO guiding you, your employees can receive top-notch benefits and you can stay within your budget.
Offer Optional Benefits Alongside the Required Ones
When considering a benefits plan for your business, you need to differentiate between the required benefits and the optional ones. Required benefits, like workers' compensation and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) compliance, are important to provide benefits. But only offering required benefits will not give your company a competitive advantage over your rivals. That is why it's so important to offer voluntary benefits to your employees.
Voluntary benefits commonly include:
- Paid time off
- Flex time
- Remote work options
- Retirement benefits
- Company retreats and holidays
A significant advantage voluntary benefits has is that you can offer nearly any you want, provided that they meet your goals and fit within your budget. The more benefits you can offer, the more likely you are to attract and retain top talent in your industry.
But the more benefits you offer, the more administering those benefits can become a headache, but a PEO can handle all of your benefits administration needs. By taking this weight off your shoulders, your PEO frees up your internal HR team's time to focus on creating an employee-centric culture by building new benefits. Your PEO will also help to ensure compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local employment laws, something that easily trips up companies. Even innocent mistakes in this area can cause costly government fines and give the impression that your company does not have a seamless benefit plan administration process.
Clearly Communicate Your Full Benefits Picture
To get the most out of your benefits plan, you need to communicate it to your potential employees during the hiring process. This could be what seals the deal for them to join your company instead of a competitor.
It's also vital that you speak with your existing employees about how offering benefits to them is not only important to your company, but that it also aligns with your company goals. This is an extremely important step in any new or modified employee benefits plan. Your employees will have questions and you need to be prepared to answer them clearly. If your employees have confusion about why things are changing or being added, that will prevent them from buying in.
The most important piece of having seamless benefits administration is making sure that everyone involved understands what is being offered and exactly how much it is going to cost. While employees overwhelmingly want and appreciate a comprehensive benefits package, they also want to know how it's going to affect their paycheck. So, if your company is excited about offering better quality healthcare plans, you need to be sure that you discuss with your team what that means for their pocketbook.
A PEO Provides Better Benefits at Lower Costs
Partnering with a PEO can give your company the benefits you need to help attract and retain top talent while not busting your budget. A PEO can also help align your benefits package with your company culture and your goals. Most importantly, a PEO can ensure that your benefits plan is administered seamlessly, handling all of the complexities and compliance that come along with benefits administration.
Giving your employees what they want only serves to help your company. By providing a comprehensive benefits package, you can better attract and retain high-quality employees. When you can offer that package without a substantial increase in cost to either your employees or to your company, that's a win-win. The best way to seamlessly administer your benefits plan is by partnering with a PEO.
