Global employees call for cover
A new survey from global employee benefits consultant Mercer has found that employees around the world would rather benefit from provisions in their insurance programmes that offer immediate gratification, instead of those that could potentially offer longer-term benefits. The survey sought to measure the perceived value employees place on various employer and employee-paid benefits and thus interviewed over 10,000 workers from different countries – the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, China and Hong Kong – during the summer of 2012.
A new survey from global employee benefits consultant Mercer has found that employees around the world would rather benefit from provisions in their insurance programmes that offer immediate gratification, instead of those that could potentially offer longer-term benefits. The survey sought to measure the perceived value employees place on various employer and employee-paid benefits and thus interviewed over 10,000 workers from different countries – the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, China and Hong Kong – during the summer of 2012.
According to the survey, an extra week of paid time off was among the top-three employee choices in seven of the 10 markets surveyed, and underscoring the trend for ‘immediacy’ over longer-term benefits, employees also selected a salary increase over all benefits options listed in the survey. Dave Rahill, president of Mercer’s Health and Benefits business, commented on the findings of the survey: “Employees valuing more time off and increased pay in the current stress-filled economic environment may be understandable, but there are other benefits that have the potential to create more income protection through health benefits and income replacement through retirement and savings vehicles. This challenge puts even more pressure on employers to deeply understand and communicate the value of various benefits to their employees so they can make smart choices.”
Responses to the survey also reflected the broad split between markets in which a wider range of health benefits are provided publicly and/or by employers and those where health benefits are not as accessible. In the former, benefits that provide additional insurance are the most popular (for example, in the US, UK, Ireland and Canada), while in the latter (Brazil and China), offerings such as additional retirement/savings rank highly. In some markets, where the state is the primary provider of healthcare, supplemental private medical insurance is popular as a voluntary or flexible benefit. Amy Laverock, strategic solutions leader for Mercer’s Global Health and Benefits division, reiterated that employers are coming under greater pressure to provide as broad a range of benefits as possible to their staff. “Reasons range from gaps in public healthcare systems to competing firms making creative and innovative benefits available. However, it is increasingly difficult for employers to simply add core benefits with the costs of these benefits outpacing inflation,” said Laverock. She added: “Voluntary or flexible benefit offerings can often bridge this gap while empowering employees to choose benefits that match their particular needs and lifestyles.”
Fergal McGuinness, Mercer’s Global Defined Contribution leader, concluded: “Employers need to enhance the perceived value of the benefits they offer to employees to ensure the investment they make in these programmes generate more strategic, long-term advantages.”