The magic number that helps your benefits program boost retention

When it comes to benefits, the number of perks you offer employees is a very important metric.  

At least that’s what MetLife’s 13th annual U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study discovered.

The MetLife study questioned more than 5,000 U.S. workers, with half of the respondents being benefits managers.

Multiple benefits = great company

In a nutshell, benefits are a huge factor in workers’ happiness with their employer and their willingness to recommend that employer as a “great place to work.”

Case in point: At businesses where no benefits are offered, fewer than half (46%) of employees would recommend their employers as “great places to work.”

Then, at companies where workers are offered between one and five benefits, the recommending percentage jumps to 53%.

Now here’s the kicker: At companies where employees are offered 11 or more benefits, the percentage of workers who recommend their employers as great places to work jumps all the to 66%, that’s 20 percentage points higher than at firms where no benefits are offered.

Plus, around 40% of workers said a wide selection of benefits would make them feel more loyal to their employer.

These findings seem to suggest that the more benefits you offer, the more satisfied your employees will be. But, of course, blindly introducing a huge selection of benefits offerings isn’t the way to go. One suggestion: Survey workers on the benefits they’d be most likely to use and offer as many of those perks as you can.

Other key findings

The MetLife study also uncovered some important findings on employers’ benefits communication and employees’ work and financial concerns.

Other highlights from the study:

• Just 45% of employees said that they strongly agree that their employers’ benefit communications helped them to understand how they would pay for specific services and effectively educated them on their benefit choices
• 41% of employers said retention was their top employee benefits objective
• 51% of employees were concerned about job security (up from 46% in 2014) make it the top employee concern
• Only 34% of workers said they have a saving cushion of three months’ salary (down from 46% in 2013), and
• 49% of employees said they’re experiencing financial stress and look to their employer for financial security help.