Creating comprehensive benefits packages that meet the needs of today’s employees is critical, but planning for the employee of the future is imperative. Doing so will ensure that benefits support your forward-looking organizational strategy and lay the foundation for a skilled workforce of the future. To bolster recruiting and retention of this future workforce, keep in mind that employees will continue to demand benefits that support mental health, align with their personal values and include flexibility.
The desire for comprehensive mental health support will not go away anytime soon. In fact, a survey by the American Psychological Association found that 80 percent of workers are planning to seek work at organizations that offer comprehensive mental health benefits. If you aren’t offering them now or planning to offer them going forward, your organization soon may face recruitment and retention challenges.
Flexibility – an employee demand that also could make or break your recruitment and retention efforts – also isn’t going away. For its 2022 Workplace Demands report, Lensa looked at global and U.S. search trends for 50 different employee benefits to see what employees are looking for both now and in the future. They compared searches since 2018 to show how employee demands have changed over time. Results show that flexibility is top-of-mind. “Hybrid work” was the second most popular search on a global scale and the first in the United States. “Four-day work week” was the 3rd most popular global search and the 2nd most popular in the U.S.
Staying abreast of the types of benefits employees want will allow your organization to bolster retention and recruitment today and tomorrow.
Keep on Learning,
—Amy Dufrane, Ed.D., SPHR, CAE
HRCI CEO
Let’s keep the conversation going: Follow me on Twitter.