Feb 14, 2022, 20:47 PM by Ginny Engholm

With teams now working from anywhere and everywhere, and with the potential for wide variation in employee expectations, values and cultural differences, benefits managers and executives face a lot of decisions about what benefits to offer and how to best manage them.

Creating benefits packages that appeal to employees who are spread around the globe is challenging, but it’s also increasingly important for businesses. With teams now working from anywhere and everywhere, and with the potential for wide variation in employee expectations, values and cultural differences, benefits managers and executives face a lot of decisions about what benefits to offer and how to best manage them.

In this economic climate, benefits packages that don’t align with or exceed the local market in terms of their employee value proposition can make it difficult to attract the talent you need, says Tim Cinalli, vice president of global payroll and benefits for Western Union.

Here’s how to design benefits for your organization’s global workforce.

Start with Strategy

Being strategic about how benefits for global teams align with the company’s goals and objectives can help HR executives create benefits packages that meet the needs of employees, and of the company.

“It’s important to set a foundation and strategy for developing packages,” Cinalli says.  Consider your company’s overall philosophy in terms of benefits, how the benefits you provide align with market expectations and whether your company will centralize the benefits offerings or develop benefits packages locally, he says.

He cautions against designing benefits in a vacuum. “Employers should look at the total rewards provided to employees holistically and ensure all components together form a competitive offering to the employee,” he says.

Think Beyond Health Care and 401(k)s

Approaching benefits holistically — and emphasizing flexibility — also helps create more robust offerings for a global workforce, says Brie Reynolds, a senior career specialist at Flexjobs. “Benefits packages should go beyond things like health care and 401(k) offerings to include flexible work options,” Reynolds says. “HR departments can consider how remote work and other flexible work options can help companies grow and develop their workforce.”

It’s also important to take into account cultural factors that influence what benefits employees value. “With a global team, executives need to take into consideration the different norms, values, customs and cultures of their employees to create benefits that work well with the company's overall approach to human resources and meet employees' needs,” Reynolds says.

Get Input from Locals

Cinalli notes that understanding the cultural landscape of a workforce spread across the globe can be challenging. Reynolds recommends addressing this by working with business leaders and HR executives who know the local landscape.

“One way to make sure the diversity of a global team is reflected in the company's benefits is to enlist the input of people from those diverse cultural backgrounds when designing or updating benefits,” she says. “Of course, this needs to be done by hiring and promoting a diverse company workforce, but can also include focus groups, surveys and workers acting as consultants to help evolve the benefits area.”

Cinalli says it’s also important to get buy-in from local business leaders and HR teams on new benefits or changes.