Benchmarking is an essential step in building a competitive employee benefits package. This process involves analyzing how your benefits compare to those of other businesses of the same size and industry.
While benefits benchmarking is a great way to get the most from your benefit dollars, its advantages don’t stop there. This important practice can also impact company culture, improving morale, productivity, and retention.
The Significance of Company Culture
Company culture makes a big difference in how a workplace operates. Prospective employees often want to know about company culture to determine whether or not they will “fit in.”
Company culture also affects customers as they want to know what to expect when interacting with staff. Culture even impacts senior management and how they influence employee behaviors.
Importance of Fostering a Positive Company Culture
Workplace culture entails shared values, attitudes, and belief systems. Many factors, such as leadership and individual upbringing, can influence company culture and contribute to a business’s long-term growth.
According to research published by Deloitte, 88% of employees and 94% of executives believe that a distinct corporate culture is paramount to a company’s success.
How Company Culture Impacts Employee Morale, Productivity, and Retention
Many employers struggle to attract and retain top talent in today’s competitive business environment. Company culture greatly influences employee performance, morale, productivity, and loyalty. It can also reduce employee turnover, which can be costly to an organization.
While creating a positive company culture takes effort, time, and resources, this commitment can help businesses build an environment that promotes diversity, recognizes employee contributions, offers opportunities for professional development, and invests in employee wellbeing.
Impact of Benefits Benchmarking on Company Culture
Many businesses invest substantial sums to create productive and efficient company cultures. A healthy work culture can influence the type of talent you attract, promote employee well-being, create a positive perception of your brand, and play a key role in employee retention. Routine benefits benchmarking can also help shed light on areas that require improvement.
Some examples of how benefits benchmarking impacts company culture include:
Fairness and Equality Among Employees
Benefits benchmarking can help ensure that employees are treated fairly and equally. Through regular benchmarking, employers can help eliminate biases based on gender, race, religion, and other protected traits.
This can help create a company culture where employees feel valued. Promoting equality in the workplace can also help protect your organization’s public reputation and improve employee retention, productivity, and morale.
Enhanced Organizational Innovation and Collaboration
Benefits benchmarking can also improve company culture in other ways, such as by enhancing organizational innovation and collaboration. In benefits benchmarking, sharing expertise and knowledge is a common role that drives improvements among peers.
Collaborative learning opportunities can occur when businesses exchange experiences and challenges that they have encountered, allowing for continued growth and improvement. Benchmarking can also give companies access to a range of perspectives which can foster innovative thinking and improve problem-solving abilities.
Strategies for Effective Benefits Benchmarking
Benefits benchmarking can help companies better understand current practices, gauge the attractiveness of benefits, anticipate market trends, and remain competitive when attracting and retaining talent. It is important for companies to understand how their plans perform and how to align benefits with the organization’s expectations and needs while managing costs.
Some simple strategies for effective benefits benchmarking include:
Establishing Clear Objectives and Metrics
One of the most important approaches to achieving effective benefits benchmarking involves establishing clear objectives and metrics. Measuring employee satisfaction can help businesses improve other aspects of work, such as productivity, morale, and retention.
There are several strategies that companies can use to measure employee satisfaction, such as by sending out surveys. Anonymous surveys can help employers better understand how employees feel about certain benefits.
Other options include regular team meetings to determine where improvements can be made, as well as employee exit interviews that discuss the company’s benefit offerings.
Incorporating Employee Feedback
Once feedback has been collected from employees, it’s time to implement it to improve benefit offerings and overall company culture. Consider employee preferences and work toward building benefits that cater to the majority without sacrificing quality.
Evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the benefits package on a routine basis. It’s also important to continue monitoring trends and changes in the internal environment and the external market that could impact your benefits package.
Let New City Insurance Assist With Your Benefits Benchmarking
Benefits benchmarking can have countless advantages for growing organizations, including improved company culture. At New City Insurance, we have a proven benchmarking system designed to help drive high employee engagement and ensure long-term success within your organization.
Reach out to our experts today to see how we can assist you with benefits benchmarking.