Specific benefits that employers can use for retention and recruiting
The ROAR forward View
This current era of the five-generation workplace has given companies entirely new and innovative ways to take advantage of business opportunities. But this unprecedented commingling of multiple generations in the workplace also creates new challenges for HR, benefits, recruiting, and retention. This benefits evolution is occurring at a time when companies are finding that their employees have a wider variety of lifestages, cultures, expectations, and personal needs than ever. All happening while there are many, many competing employment trends, such as:
- A paucity of reciprocal company and employee loyalty
- Talent and labor shortages
- Extended life-, health-, and work-spans
- A 50+ cohort that often needs to – or wants to – continue to work past 65
- Ambitious and impatient younger employees who are looking to make their mark
- Financial frustrations due to high levels of student debt, inflation, healthcare costs, and other pressures.
So, how can a benefits department satisfy, service, and help retain such a wide variety of employees? What do 50+-year-old employees want from a company other than compensation? And how does a company simultaneously support its later-career employees as well as its new 23-year-old (or even 19-year-olds in many trade professions) recruits who are just entering the workforce?
As one benefits executive says, “You need to demonstrate your [company’s] dedication to offering benefits for a very, very diverse group of employees at all different stages of life.”
When evaluating the success of a company’s benefits packages, it’s obvious that most employees care about many of the same things: primarily adequate compensation and meaningful work. It’s also clear that everyone wants flexibility around their employment for many different reasons. But when looking at workforce age and lifestyle, nuances emerge. Additionally, later-career employees are now prioritizing benefits such as better health insurance (especially with lower deductibles and out-of-pocket costs), increased paid vacation, grandparent leave, flexible hours, flexible work locations, wellness programs, and menopause support.
The new and building challenge for highly-attuned benefits departments – and suppliers of benefits to companies – is to provide support to help employees reduce the stress brought on by the specific pressures of each lifestages. Understanding the specific demands of new, mid-career, and later-career workers will require a real understanding of those needs, and then reacting to them in such a way that will support recruiting and retention of in-demand skilled employees.
Three Things Employers Need to Know About Compensation and Benefits for 50+ Workers
The Center for Aging & Work at Boston College
The 401(k) plan may be equally or more important than wage and salary as workers age. Which industries’ workers show more or less interest in compensation vs. benefits across all ages? This report surfaces how benefits differ by age, lifestyle, and/or generation.
The Top Benefits Employees Are Looking For
The Hill
Benefit preferences vary by worker age. “More than 30 percent of those between the ages 18 and 41 are most concerned with having pet insurance as a benefit. Nearly 40 percent of workers aged 42 to 57 are more likely to prioritize mandatory paid time off, while more than 80 percent of those over age 42 are seeking roles that offer health care covered by insurance.”
Benefits That HR Departments Should Consider for an Aging Workforce
HR Brew
A new slate of benefits for later-career workers may be the deciding factor for them to stay in the workforce (or employed at your company). Phased retirement, snowbird schedules, re-skilling, and fractional or part-time positions are all becoming competitive advantages.
Will Grandparent Leave Keep 50+ Employees in the Workforce?
HRD America
Work flexibility means many things to many different workers at different life stages. Will the opportunity to be a more involved grandparent, or to provide support and care to a child who has had their own child, become an important benefit?