5 employee benefits small companies can offer new employees

Your startup is in its early stages, or perhaps you’ve been in business for a while, and you’re ready to hire employees. Have you thought about how you’ll hire the best ones? The most beneficial thing for your startup and your employees is to offer a healthy benefits package.

In this article, we look at five employee benefits small companies can offer new employees, but first let’s look at why you should offer benefits at all.

The reasons you should offer employee benefits

Yes, offering perks to your employees comes at a cost to your business, but the pros of offering them certainly outweigh the cons.

By offering benefits, you improve your employee recruitment as well as retention. You’ll find that the better your benefits the better chance you’ll have of attracting top talent.

Remember that you are competing against big companies with full benefits packages, so to compete for the best employees, you need to offer the same or better than what they’re offering.

What’s more, when your employees feel appreciated by the benefits you offer them, they’re more likely to stick around.

Next, when you offer a health insurance plan, your employees have access to improved health and wellness. This in turn increases their productivity because they are out sick for less time.

You may also benefit from tax advantages by offering your staff benefits. For example, you might be able to deduct plan contributions to health insurance, life insurance and pension plans.

Finally, offering employee benefits creates a positive company culture. This helps you retain your staff which helps you grow your business because your employees are more productive.

Send your recruits the message that you care about them by offering the best benefits package you can. Here are some options: 

#1: Offer a 401K plan

One of the biggest misconceptions is that small businesses can’t offer a 401K plan or that they don’t qualify. This just isn’t true.

You should offer a 401K plan to your staff.

Another misconception is that you have to match your employee’s contribution. This also isn’t true. You can still offer the retirement benefit while opting out of a match.

Your employees want a 401K plan, so whether you decide to match it or not, it’s still something you want to offer your team.

#2: Offer HSA/HRA services

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) are also something to offer new employees.

A health savings account (HAS) is a tax-advantaged medical savings account. The funds contributed to it are not subject to federal income tax at the time of the deposit.

Because it’s a helpful way to save for medical expenses and reduce taxable income, the HSA is another nice benefit to offer your staff.

A Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), usually referred to as a health reimbursement account, is an IRS-approved, employer-funded, tax-advantaged employer health benefit plan that reimburses employees for out-of-pocket medical expenses and individual health insurance premiums.

You can often offer this benefit in addition to the HSA. 

#3: Offer a healthy vacation plan

Today’s employees, especially Millennials, want time off, and they want to be paid for it.

You should offer this benefit to your staff because by doing so, you give your staff time to relax and refresh.

Do include sick leave, vacation time, personal days, national holidays, bereavement leave and more. The healthier your time off plan is the better. 

#4: Offer a health insurance

In today’s jumbled health insurance arena, one of the most important benefits to your staff is health insurance. In fact, they see this as providing the most added value.

Offering health insurance to your staff shows you care about their wellness, and you recognize that the marketplace is a frustrating spot.

Help alleviate their frustration by offering health insurance as a benefit.

 #5: Offer parental leave

If you have more than 50 employees, the Family and Medical Leave Act requires you to provide at least 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave for specified family (i.e. birth of a child) and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if your employee had not taken leave.

But, you can take this one step further and create a more generous paid parental leave policy to attract younger talent.

Final thoughts

To attract and retain the best talent, you have to step outside your financial comfort zone a bit and come up with great benefits to offer new employees.

Consider the employee culture you want to create. Is it employee-centered or company-centered?

You’re better off with a bit of both. To recruit the best staff, enhance productivity, and increase your retention rate, you need to do the best you can for your team in the benefits department.

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Since 2006, Escalon has helped thousands of startups grow faster with our back-office solutions for HR, payroll, accounting, recruiting and taxes — and we can help yours too. Talk to an expert today.