'When businesses have the right mix of benefits for their organisations, that drives better relationships between managers and employees'
One in two employees are financially stressed, according to data from pay and benefits provider Flare.
“We're really talking about a workforce that is feeling the pressure of the cost of goods, the cost of transport and the cost of living in general,” David Brudenell, chief revenue officer at Flare said during a recent webinar.
“And what's really interesting is that this rate of financial stress has actually increased by 4% in only the six months since we started launching this study.”
As a consequence, Brudenell said 30% of employees are emotionally stressed and 25% are physically stressed.
During the webinar, titled, Hidden superpowers in managers: how to boost employee resiliency and productivity with benefits, Brudenell went on to discuss the advantages of employee benefits, particularly amid the cost of living crisis.
The Employee Benefits Index
In Flare’s 2023 National Employee Benefits Index, respondents were asked what benefits are currently offered by their employer, and which are actually being used. These were complemented with engagement questions around stress, loyalty, engagement, professional development, and job satisfaction, Brudenell said.
“What we can see in the National Employee Benefits Index is that when businesses have the right mix of benefits for their organisations, that drives better relationships between managers and employees, those employees are more motivated to apply their talents to work,” Brudenell said.
“They feel better aligned to the work that they're doing in the business and generally speaking they’re more excited to come to work.”
Benefits for employees
One of the areas that can have a big impact on take home pay is salary sacrificing, Brudenell said.
However, when employees were asked which benefits they have heard of before, including salary sacrificing, there was a lack of awareness of some offerings:
- Salary sacrifice WFH setup (16%)
- Salary sacrifice mobile phone (19%)
- Salary sacrifice laptop (20%)
- Salary sacrifice education expenses (21%)
- Income protection insurance (27%)
- Health insurance (35%)
- Additional leave (37%)
- Novated leasing (53%)
“What you can see here from salary sacrificing their work from home setup to novated leasing to income protection experience, the average is only one in four people even knew that these benefits existed,” he said.
The following question for respondents was that now that they were are aware of the benefits, would they use them in the next 12 months, Brudenell said. One in two employees would take additional leave and health insurance; one in three would take novated leasing; and one in five would go for the other benefits including salary sacrifice of a phone and income protection insurance.
“Across the board, nearly 90% of people who were asked…’Would you take one of these up?’ actually said yes,” he said. “So there's certain demand.”
However, Brudenell added that “the supply from employers is extremely low”.
“There are obviously opportunities to drive these take home pay focused engagement outcomes,” he said. “And it seems like the employment market in Australia, or businesses in Australia, need to come up the curve to be able to deliver some of these take home pay outcomes for employees.”
3 most common benefits offered
Brudenell went on to discuss the top three most common benefits employers offered by employers – free coffee/snacks, training and education, reasonable working hours. However, he had statistics from the Index which showed how these are hardly used by employees.
In terms of training, Brudenell said there could be an opportunity for employers to restructure their learning and development programs to suit a post-covid world.
“There could be opportunities, especially around the cost of living crisis, to look at learning and development personally,” he said. “So financial awareness or financial acumen, building that within your employee base that may help them in their personal lives and may have good echoes in their professional lives.”
Listen to the full webinar with David Brudenell and Flare’s VP of people and culture Lauren Trethowan: Hidden Superpowers in Managers: How to Boost Employee Resiliency and Productivity With Benefits.
