Does your employer offer useless benefits?
Oh those words themselves, useless benefits, can put a damper on things! When we get hired, benefits can outweigh salary a lot of the time. Remember, life-work balance is important in today’s employment market. And if an employer can offer the best of both worlds, well that’s just amazing! But if the perks of the benefits outweigh the salary, we have a winner. Because in the end, the benefits will more so make up for where salary may be lacking and then some.
We’ve all run into them from time to time. At first, the benefits that you hear about seem amazing and the possibilities are endless. Then as time passes, one realizes that the benefits that were supposed to be well beneficial, have actually just been sitting there collecting dust and not a benefit at all to you or your employees, if you’re the employer. And furthermore, only to realize that other benefits could have been more useful if you were educated about them prior and what they could do for you and your family in the long run.
Two of the most useless benefits I have found from what companies have recently offered were;
-Employee Discount Programs.
-Wellness Fitness Programs.
Let us start with the “Employee Discount Programs.” I have seen where employers have pushed about the discounts and how much one can save and what it can really do for the employee overall. Instead, I have often found that there really aren’t any discounts to be had because either the employee didn’t spend what was needed to be spent to earn the employee discount, to begin with, or they didn’t use it in a timely manner and adhere to blackout dates and restrictions that can apply. The 3rd parties that your employer works with to provide the employee discounts are actually higher in a lot of instances regarding no discount benefits to be had and the perks just aren’t there at all after a thorough analysis. Oftentimes, employers have an agreement with these 3rd party companies and at times even pay to be part of the organization, club, or supposed discount program, only to find that company funds are being wasted because the usage isn’t there and employees are dissatisfied in the long run for not seeing these supposed benefits that should be provided if one works with an organization that offers it.
Why would anyone want to go through their company to take advantage of the “Employee Discount Program,” only to find that outside their company, there are more benefits with an abundance of cost savings and overall lesser restrictions to the employee? Hence where the “Employee Discount Program” is really of no benefit. If companies are going to offer things like this, more research needs to be implemented and it has to be worth it for all parties involved. Whether it be offering further discounts to the employees to utilize these “Employee Discount Programs” within the organization that has more benefits than going outside of the organization. Or providing incentives that can entice the employee(s) to utilize the programs. Whether that be in the form of flex time, additional perks at work, or even free lunch at times when a certain amount of usage of the employee discount program is met by the employee. I’ve seen it all and some have actually been positive experiences while some have unfortunately not. But if you don’t try you won’t know what will work for your organization and for the employees in general. These are things that really need to be discussed amongst all the parties to be involved in this decision process so that to provide a successful experience overall.
The second benefit that I have found to be useless is the “Wellness Fitness Program,” and the supposed health benefits. Now to be fair, I can’t say it’s completely useless. I myself took advantage of such a program through my employer and lost 20 pounds. And I’ll always be grateful for the program. I think it’s great when an employer advocates for the health of their employees! I’ve seen it where there are incentives involved for weight loss with monetary perks or benefits like 30, 60, or 90-day free gym memberships, and even where free meal plan services were provided to the employee for 6 months! All this based on if consistency was shown every month, to entice the employee to keep up with their fitness goals, etc. When the “Wellness Fitness Program” does fail it’s because employers don’t keep up with the employees that are participating in the program and engage with them in the process on a regular basis overall. This is very simple to achieve and can be done with weekly face-to-face meetings, text team group check-ins, ZOOM meetings, and having the teams meet up to participate in outdoor activities, etc. Also providing weekly email newsletters on a fitness regime, healthy recipes, acknowledgments of employees and their accomplishments, see where I’m going with this? Engagement! Although there can be challenges like when companies operate remotely or there are several employees in different time zones. But it still can be done if consistency is made a priority, especially with the advanced technology, apps, and overall communication styles that are offered today.
For employers, it’s important to do the research as mentioned and see what’s out there. There are so many different benefits that really have proven to be successful to employees and an organization overall. Remember, a happy employee equals a happy and profitable organization. For employees, research is needed on your part as well. If your acceptance for employment with a company comes down to a few things like the “Employee Discounts Program” you may want to add or negotiate further on this especially if you are coming from a prior employer that did things differently or offered things that really were of benefit to the employees. It doesn’t hurt to provide some professional feedback and it could even give the organization further ideas to improve their program in turn. A win-win for everyone.