Tips to Enhance the Employee Experience Beyond Health Benefits

You’ve hired excellent employees.

That’s the first step. The second step is keeping those excellent employees.

Happy and engaged employees are more productive and more willing to stay at a company, and these numbers prove it: statistics show engaged employees reduce a company’s turnover rate by 25-59%.

Those are some big numbers, right? The best part—it’s easy to create a strong company culture and employee experience by enhancing a simple offering:

Employee benefits.

Health insurance is just a start. There are some other benefits you can offer your employees for a great working experience overall.

Flexible schedules

A flexible work-life balance has been important for a long time (in fact, there are studies going as far back as the 1990s showcasing this).

Here’s how people feel about it.

In the 2015 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement report written by SHRM, “55% of employees cited the flexibility to balance work and life issues as a very important aspect of their job satisfaction.” And a recent LinkedIn study showed that “69% of HR professionals agree that [a flexible] work-life balance is the number one factor impacting the employee experience at work.”

Offering your employees flexibility and Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs) makes for an outstanding work-life balance. Here are some ideas for FWAs:

Casual dress day (every day, seasonal, or one day per week)
Remote work arrangements (part or full-time)
Flexitime (employees choose the hours/days they work)
Flexitime (during core business hours)
Flexitime (outside of core business hours)
Flexible mealtime and break options
Compressed workweek (e.g., four days a week instead of five)

Office amenities

Amenities like a coffeemaker, snacks, company lunches, and free gym memberships are good, but what if a few or the majority your employees work from home? You’ll need to pivot your thinking away from the “same old, same old” and come up with some office amenities to support your remote workers, like:

Communication channels where you can all gather for virtual “water cooler talk”
“Rules” to remind employees to keep a healthy work-life balance
Creative days (so employees can recharge their batteries with their favorite hobbies)
Concierge services for personal and business-related tasks
Satellite offices to allow for collaborations among teammates who live close by

This is not an all-encompassing list, but these kinds of amenities help ensure your employees’ productivity and overall well-being.

Professional development opportunities

Learning doesn’t stop at onboarding—it is a continual process. The Tinypulse Employee Retention Report states “employees are 20% more likely to hold the same job in a year if they feel like they are advancing in their career.”

Professional development comes in many forms. It can be as simple as having one of your employees lead an in-house training or having your entire team attend a webinar. You can even have tuition reimbursement or a yearly education fund to allow your team to learn and develop new skills.

Community involvement programs

Volunteering and supporting a good cause helps employees’ wellness, productivity, and teamwork. A study shows people who volunteer “report experiencing improvement in their mood, stress levels, and overall health while also feeling a renewed sense of purpose.” The same study showed volunteering strengthened productivity, teamwork, and team relationships overall.

Long story short: volunteering helps your employees feel like they’re making a difference in their community. Consider adding paid volunteer time off to your employee benefits so they can dedicate time to the causes that matter to them.

Discount programs

Who doesn’t love a good discount and a chance to save money without the hassle of clipping a ton of coupons (apologies to the extreme couponing crowd)? Give your employees membership into an employee discount and reward program where they can save on items like:

Warehouse club memberships (Sam’s Club, Costco)
Cell phone plans
Hotels, plane tickets, and rental cars
Virtual events, concerts, and shows
Meal plan kits (HelloFresh, Blue Apron)
Streaming services (Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu)
Delivery driver services (Doordash, Grubhub, Postmates)

A good benefits program does include good health benefits. But offer some benefits beyond that, and you’ll have happy employees who are more likely to stick around.

Photo by langstrup