EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
US employers find flaws in dazzling benefits packages
Few involved or interested in reward management can have escaped the countless magazine and newspaper articles devoted to the war for talent that has erupted on both sides of the Atlantic. We have become accustomed to hearing about the startling array of benefits that companies are prepared to offer to seduce people to join their business, and at the same time hold on to their best employees. But these perks are still very much a minority practice, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which has assembled some telling data on the take-up of benefits in the USA.
The 600-company survey by the world's largest human resource management association suggests that employers are becoming more cautious about the number of benefits they offer. Although the US labour market continues to tighten, the figures gathered by the SHRM show a year-on-year decline in the number of employers who offer such benefits as relocation assistance, health wellness programmes, subsidised cafeterias and certain types of leave.
Firms seeking bigger returns on benefits package
For Michael R Losey, the SHRM's president and CEO, this retrenchment is due in large part to employers focusing their resources more effectively.
Many employers initially responded to the tight labour market by implementing new and more generous benefits packages in an attempt to boost their recruitment and retention efforts. The slight cut-backs we're seeing this year may be indicative that a number of employers found the new benefits were too costly or not as effective as they hoped.
Personal service benefits still not the norm
While casual dress is now a common benefit across corporate America — used by more than two-fifths of survey participants — the level of change in some of the other cushy perks that have been introduced to retain precious staff and make their lives easier should not be exaggerated.
Despite the widespread media interest, many of these so-called convenience benefits remain at the fringes of contemporary US benefits practice:
dry cleaning services (offered by 11% of survey participants)
massage therapy service at work (8%)
self-defence training (5%)
concierge services (4%)
nap time during the workday (1%)
pet health insurance (1%)
previously prepared take-home meals (1%).
Take-up of family-friendly benefits remains strong
More frequent are ways to help employees balance work and family life. One of most popular family-friendly benefits among the US organisations polled by the SHRM is flexitime (51%). A sizeable proportion of respondents also operate flexible-working schedules, including compressed working week (27% of respondents), telecommuting (26%), and job sharing (22%). These practices are more common in larger organisations than smaller ones.
The number of older people in the US is increasing and, as a result, more people will have responsibility for the care of their ageing parents, thus increasing the demand for employer-provided elder care benefits, says the SHRM.
Yet despite these demographic changes, only 15% of those canvassed by the US researchers offer an elder care referral service, a marginal increase on the 1999 figure. And other elder care benefits also remain far from the norm: just 1% of respondents operates company-supported elder care centres and the same proportion subsidises costs of elder care.
Family-friendly benefits in US organisations
|
|
Per cent of respondents
|
| Dependent care flexible spending account | 62% |
| Flexitime | 51% |
| Compressed working week | 27% |
| Telecommuting | 26% |
| Job sharing | 22% |
| Bring child to work in emergency | 21% |
| Childcare referral service | 17% |
| Elder care referral service | 15% |
| Lactation programme/designated area | 15% |
| Emergency/sick child care | 12% |
| Adoption assistance | 11% |
| Adoption assistance | 11% |
| Domestic partner benefits | 10% |
| Subsidise costs of childcare | 6% |
| Company-supported childcare centre | 3% |
| Onsite childcare centre | 3% |
| Company-supported elder care centre | 1% |
| Subsidise costs of elder care | 1% |
Source: SHRM.
What you'll find in the SHRM survey
Spread across 52 pages, the report examines the incidence of approximately 120 benefits, divided into eight sections:
family-friendly
housing
health care
personal services
financial
business travel
leave
unusual perks.
Survey details
Title: The SHRM 2000 benefits survey.
Survey sample: the 52-page survey is based on information supplied by 606 human resource professionals, of which 79% work in units with 1,000 or fewer employees.
Business sectors: participants are drawn from a broad range of sectors across the US, with a particularly large response from manufacturing (29%), followed by finance/insurance and real estate (11%).
Methodology: survey questionnaires mailed to 2,500 randomly-selected SHRM members in January 2000, with a 24% response rate.
Availability: call the Society for Human Resource Management in Virginia, USA, tel: 001 703 548 3440.
Want to know more? Visit SHRM online at www.shrm.org