The Ultimate Guide to Employee Benefits

You can’t have a discussion about recruitment or retention without employee benefits. They are a foundational pillar in who you are as an employer. Your workforce and candidates alike will judge your value as an organization based on the employee benefits package you offer.

That’s why we’re exploring the importance of employee benefits, which ones matter the most and how you can use them to improve your recruitment strategy.

What Are Employee Benefits? 

Employee benefits are additional perks on top of an employee’s salary. They can be intangible or tangible in nature, but always offer additional support to an employee’s overall well-being. 

Companies are expected to offer employee benefits within a compensation package. Some benefits are required by law, while others are offered as additional support for an employee or as a way to stand out among competitors.

Examples of Employee Benefits 

While employee benefits can be categorized in many different ways, Benify suggests the following four categories when thinking about your company’s benefits package. We’ve laid out some of the most common benefits companies offer within each of these categories.

1. Work Environment Benefits

These are the benefits employers offer to support a proper working environment — whether that be at home or in the office. Most of a company’s benefits package will fall under this category. Here are some examples of work environment benefits:   

• Paid time off 
• Volunteer time off
• Paid sick days 
• Casual dress 
• Professional development stipend 
• Culture clubs or committees
• Happy hours 
• Stocked kitchen
• Pet-friendly office
• Remote work program
• Home office stipends
• “No meeting” days, or other “focus time” policies 

2. Health and Wellness Benefits

The employee benefits that fall under this category are all about the mental and physical well-being of a company’s workforce. They range from more traditional offerings, like health insurance, to ones that have become more common in the past few years, such as mental health benefits. Here are some examples to inspire your own benefits package:

• Health insurance
• Vision insurance
• Dental benefits
• Employee assistance programs
• Family medical leave
• Wellness programs
• Fitness subsidy
• Onsite gym 
• Mental health days
• Telehealth services
• Transgender healthcare 
• Fertility benefits 
• Neurodiversity accommodations (quiet rooms, sensory-friendly workspaces etc.) 

3. Financial Security Benefits

Financial security benefits are perks that offer employees additional compensation support beyond their salary. These help incorporate additional monetary value to an employee’s overall compensation package. Here are just a few examples of what financial security benefits might look like in your organization:

• 401(K) 
• 401(K) employee match program 
• 403(b)
• Pension plans
• Disability insurance
• Charitable contribution match
• Relocation assistance
• Education reimbursement
• Company equity 
• Performance bonus
• Student loan repayment assistance 

4. Lifestyle Benefits 

This category includes all of the employee benefits that go above and beyond to make an employee’s life easier, including promoting better work-life balance. These benefits are sometimes more unique to offer but help a company stand out against talent competitors. 

• Commuter benefits
• Life insurance 
• Parental leave 
• Pet insurance 
• Legal services
• Sabbatical leave
• Child care 
• Daily meals provided 
• Generous or unlimited PTO
• Employee discounts
• Company retreats
• “Work from anywhere” policies

Why Are Employee Benefits Important? 

Employee benefits aren’t just necessary to running a company, they can actually benefit the bottom line of your business. Here’s how.

Better Retention Rates 

Employee benefits impact your success in recruiting candidates and keeping them happy and engaged as employees. Your workforce directly benefits from these offerings, so making sure their needs are addressed by the package you offer is important. 

According to a 2022 MetLife Report, when companies take care of their employees’ well-being, employees are 51 percent more likely to say they intend to stay with their company after 12 months. And increased loyalty means a better chance of retaining your workforce long-term. Being happy within a role is also another way to retain employees, and your employee benefits can help with that. The same report shows employees are 74 percent more likely to be satisfied with their jobs when their companies address their well-being. 

Attract More Talent 

There are a lot of factors that influence a candidate’s decision-making process regarding which company they want to work for. Yet, one of the most common is a company’s employee perks. A 2022 Gallup workplace survey found that 64 percent of employees consider more pay and benefits to be “very important” when searching for their next job. This is followed closely by work-life balance, which is “very important” to 61 percent of respondents. 

Of course, you won’t be able to meet every candidate’s needs with your employee benefits package, but understanding the importance of them in the job search is vital to your hiring success. It’s not just about having a great recruitment strategy, you must be able to sell the candidates on working for you once they are in your talent pipeline — and employee benefits can help you do just that.  

Positively Influence Job Offers 

The influence of employee benefits doesn’t stop at attracting more talent, it also influences a candidate’s final decision of whether or not to work for your company. Almost 90 percent of job candidates have dropped out of the hiring process due to employee value proposition-related issues, including disagreements over compensation and benefits. This is critical. You’ve spent all of this time (and money) to get this candidate to the final stages of your hiring process — don’t let them slip away because your employee benefits weren’t up to par. 

Still not convinced employee benefits are that important? A majority of employees would rather have more employee benefits than additional pay. This is just another indicator of how important a solid benefits package is in your overall compensation for a role. It could be the difference between hiring your ideal candidate and having to restart your recruitment process from square one. 

Increased Productivity

When employees aren’t as worried about things like healthcare costs, burnout or retirement, they’re more likely to be focused and effective at work. Wellness programs, flexible scheduling and 401(k) match programs can have a direct impact on workers’ productivity and performance, such as faster project delivery and stronger collaboration.

What’s more, strong health, wellness and leave policies can also cut down on sick days or “presenteeism” — when an employee shows up but isn’t functioning at their best due to stress or illness. Research often shows that preventative measures like screenings or employee assistance programs can pay for themselves by keeping employees healthier.

More Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Inclusive benefits — such as gender-affirming healthcare, fertility assistance or flexible working hours — help ensure a company can meet the needs of employees across many life stages and identities. When an employer offers benefits that recognize various family structures, cultural backgrounds and accessibility requirements, they’re demonstrating that they’re committed to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion beyond just surface level initiatives. For example, disability accommodations, mental health resources and floating cultural holidays give employees more control over how they align work with their personal lives.

In the end, these programs can not only support DEI goals internally, but they can also strengthen your employer branding externally, making your organization more desirable to job seekers and more likely to retain workers. When employees see their needs reflected in their company’s policies, they’re more likely to feel valued, engaged and included in the workplace.

Employer Branding and Reputation Boost

A strong benefits package that demonstrates compassion and a long-term investment in people doesn’t just boost employee morale, it also plays a direct role in how a company is perceived from the outside. Job seekers no longer solely rely on company websites or recruiter pitches to evaluate potential employers — they also turn to third-party review sites like Glassdoor, social media platforms like Reddit and, most recently, AI tools like ChatGPT. 

Essentially, these chatbots synthesize the information they get from reviews, press coverage and company-provided data to deliver quick, straight-forward responses to users’ questions about a given employer’s workplace culture and policies. Companies with transparent, inclusive benefits are more likely to appear favorably in those searches, while those with sub-par offerings (or little publicly available information about them) risk being overlooked altogether. In this sense, employee benefits have become both a critical recruitment strategy and a powerful reputation driver.

The Most Desirable Employee Benefits 

While there are an infinite amount of benefits to choose from, asking your workforce for their thoughts on your benefits package and what’s missing can be extremely helpful in determining which benefits you should invest in. It’s also helpful to understand which benefits candidates are most interested in. This will help you proactively meet the needs of future employees and attract more of the talent you need.

We teamed up with Brandata to survey 1,099 employed tech professionals between March 18 and April 5 of 2022. Our findings show the following employee benefits were the most popular among technology professionals nationwide:

1. Health insurance 
2. 401(K) matching
3. Remote work 
4. Employer retirement contributions
5. Generous or unlimited PTO
6. Retirement planning
7. Mental health and wellness benefits
8. Company equity
9. Parental leave
10. Food stipend

We break down the data even further, analyzing what benefits matter most to professionals based on age and gender. Download the full report now to see all of the research we did on employee benefits. 

One thing to keep in mind is that your employee benefits package should never stay stagnant. A working environment can change quickly and so does an employee’s needs. Being flexible in your offerings will ensure you’re always aligned with both your employees’ and candidates’ expectations. 

Ways to Showcase Employee Benefits in Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy

Once you’ve narrowed down the employee benefits you’re going to offer, it’s time to show them off. To help you do that, we’ve outlined a few ways you can make employee benefits a pillar of your recruitment marketing strategy.

1. Make Employee Benefits Prominent on Your Careers Page 

Your careers page is the place to show off why you’re a great employer, so it’s vital you’re showcasing your employee benefits. Highlight the benefits you know candidates want or your employees enjoy most. Sharing your more unique employee benefits will help differentiate your company from your talent competitors. 

2. Emphasize Employee Benefits in Your Employer Branding Content 

Show off the impact your employee benefits have by interviewing employees about their favorite benefits and how they’ve helped them. Maybe you have a parent who took advantage of your robust parental leave program or an employee who got their MBA and used your educational reimbursement program. 

All of these stories will help put more legitimacy behind your employee benefits and make them memorable. Candidates will be able to picture themselves working at your company and enjoying these benefits.

3. Publish SEO- and AI-Friendly Content that Highlights Your Employee Benefits

Publish blogs, FAQ pages and explainer videos about your employee benefits, and make sure the content is structured in a way that both humans and algorithms can easily parse. Job seekers are increasingly using tools like ChatGPT and AI search engines to research potential employers, and providing clear, specific content will help ensure your information gets surfaced accurately.

You can even extend this strategy beyond your own site, partnering with third-party news outlets and career platforms to publish articles, listicles and employee spotlight pieces that highlight your employee benefits. This content often gets indexed by Google and AI chatbots that aggregate employer information, meaning your benefits are more likely to appear when candidates ask about them. Basically, by diversifying how and where your benefits are published, you can increase the odds of job seekers seeing your company in a favorable light

4. Mention Employee Benefits in the Interview Process

While an interview process is typically spent assessing a candidate’s fit, it’s also important you find time to sell your company as a great place to work. Briefly talking through the employee benefits that differentiate you as an employer and how your employees have benefited from them will help seal the deal, especially since we know that candidates heavily weigh employee benefits in their final employment decisions. This is especially important if you’re hiring sought-after talent. Make sure you discuss your employee benefits prior to sending them a job offer.

Frequently Asked Questions