Summary
I have heard many complaints over the past couple of years from riled business owners who think that they shouldn’t have to provide group benefits to their full time employees but complain that their employees are constantly nagging them about it.
If you happen to be one of those business owners, there are a number of reasons that we have put together for you here for why you SHOULD provide group benefits, and some of them may surprise you! This advice is coming from my own experience running Shop Smart.
Reasons to Provide Group Benefits
1. Employee Retention: This probably won’t come as much of a shocker to you, but those companies that offer group benefits are far more likely to keep their employees than those who don’t. According to Willis Towers Watson, an independent research group, studies show that group benefit plans could be as much of 50% in explaining why employees choose, and perhaps even stay with, certain companies.
2. Keeps Your Employees Focused: There are many things that can sidetrack one of your employees. Let’s face it, life is tough, and that medical bill never comes at the right time. If an employee is stressed enough by the impending payments, he or she may quit. However, if your insurance plan provides the much-needed help, you may be able to save your employee’s stress and keep that employee motivated.
3. Tax Benefits: For certain types of businesses (usually those with less than 25 employees), expenses made under defined benefit plans can often be returned fully in a tax credit at the end of the year. For other businesses, there are usually deductions available for different expenses made under your group plans.
Furthermore, you are increasing the working dollars of your employees, since their income is now more slightly tax-protected since they can use the benefits at a tax-free cost.
4. Automatic Avoidance of Governmental Reform: America is changing frequently as a country. The laws that govern how businesses are supposed to treat their employees are changing all the time, and it can be almost impossible to keep up with them. Those businesses that offer retirement plan benefits may already be seeing the first waves of this, since they are basically required to offer a flat rate matching incentive.
If you are already offering group benefit plans as part of your employment process, and those pension plans are relatively equal in nature, then it is far more likely that you will be protected from any sort of governmental crackdown reforms that may come up in the near-to-medium future.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Without a doubt, offering a group benefit plan can be highly useful for a variety of reasons. We have listed just a few of those reasons above for you, and there are many more. If you haven’t considered offering a group plan, or you have considered it but aren’t offering one right now, we would suggest you take the idea of a group benefit plan very seriously based on the merits provided herein!
Author Bio: Srikar Srinivasula is the founder of shopsmart.online & eFlair Webtech. As an Internet entrepreneur and tech enthusiast he loves to read, strategize and experiment sound business & marketing principles. You can reach him on @srikar115.
