The Modern Compensation Package – It Needs to Be Competitive

Your employee compensation and benefits package can be the deciding factor for many potential employees. And it’s not just the money. To make your company competitive and attractive to job candidates, you have to offer an exceptional total benefits package.

Here are some suggestions for creating a compensation package that will be attractive to today’s employees.

1.    Salary

Although money isn’t everything, it certainly is one of the top issues potential employees consider when choosing a new job. In addition to whether it’s competitive, decide whether to offer a straight basic salary structure or an incentive-based pay structure. Incentive-based structures are hot right now.

2.    Health and Other Insurance

The three main types of health coverage you can offer to your employees are traditional coverage(fee-for-service), HMO (health maintenance organization), or PPO (preferred provider organization). Most employers also include dental coverage and vision coverage.

It pays to find a good broker when looking for health insurance policies. The broker may represent plans from up to 15 different insurers, allowing you to get a better feel for what is available and do more comparison shopping. You may also want to include

  • Disability and Life Insurance
  • Long and Short-Term Disability
  • Life Insurance

3.    Paid Time Off
Most companies provide paid holidays for all of their employees. The national average is 10 1/2 paid holidays per year. In addition to standard holidays, some companies also provide one to two floating holidays or personal days. These days can be used whenever the employee would like to use them and often make up for religious holidays that are not part of the company’s standard paid holiday schedule.

Then there are vacation days and paid sick days. Some companies allow employees to use their paid sick days to also take care of family members who are ill. Make sure you set a policy and stick to it.

In addition to regular benefits packages that include health insurance, vacation, and retirement plans, employees are actively seeking companies who offer more of the things they value. Balancing their lives is becoming more important than ever. Because of this, other benefits like flexible schedules, relaxed atmospheres, childcare and other lifestyle benefits are becoming almost as important as salaries.

4.    Flex Time

Companies that offer flex time find that their employees are more productive, motivated, and loyal. And why wouldn’t they be? Employees can alleviate quite a bit of stress from life just by coming in to work an hour earlier and leaving an hour earlier to miss the interstate parking lot scene, and it can also give them more time with their families.

5.    Telecommuting

Face time in an office is way overrated. Today, you have to measure an employee’s worth by what they produce, not by how many hours you see them sitting at their computers (or in the break room, or at their co-worker’s desk). You’ll also benefit from the increased loyalty and boosted morale of your telecommuting workforce.

Other employee-friendly policies and programs include

  • Dependent Care Assistance
  • Adoption Assistance Programs
  • Jury Duty, Military Leave, and Bereavement

You’ll also need a policy on maternity and/or paternity leave. Whether this leave is paid or unpaid is up to you. Domestic Partner Benefits have become more commonplace over the past few years. If yours is a very diverse workforce, you may want to consider covering domestic partners in your benefits program.

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