Employee benefits

Employee benefits are the extras employers provide employees on top of their compensation and pay package, sometimes also referred to as ‘perks’ or employee benefit schemes. 

Employee benefits are used by employers to attract, retain and engage employees and can genuinely make a real difference to employees’ lives outside of their base compensation and pay package they receive. 

The advantages employees gain from their employee benefits are often unique and can only be gained through being provided them through their employee benefits package by their employer. 

For example, salary sacrifice schemes provide a unique way for employees to make tax and national insurance savings on things like bikes and cycling equipment that employees couldn’t find elsewhere. 

Overall, a strong employee benefits package can often be the difference in a competitive labour market when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent. 

Companies can choose from various budget planning methods for employee benefits. 

The budget set will often depend on the HR and business objectives set out and how much budget is likely needed to achieve these. 

Read our full guide on How to budget for employee benefits for a full start-to-finish breakdown on how to set your budget, the costs to consider and how to get an employee benefits budget approved.

Employee benefits provide a huge opportunity for employers to differentiate themselves in a competitive job market and become an employer of choice, making employees’ paycheques go further and improving the overall Employee Value Proposition. 

Employee benefit schemes can help employees save money, give them control over their finances and even improve their future financial outlook. 

They can help employees improve their physical and mental wellbeing too, while some health and wellbeing benefits can also cover the whole family. 

The breadth and depth of employee benefits means there’s something for everyone and a whole range of advantages to be gained by both employers and employees. 

To realise the full advantages of employee benefits, it’s vital you have the right package in place for your employees in an all-in-one, easy to use and accessible employee benefits platform to help employees find and ultimately utilise the employee benefits that are valuable to them. 

Increasingly, employees expect their employer to provide not just a range of benefits but a selection of employee benefits that appeal to them that add real value to the employment package. 

We recommend providing a wide range of benefits so you're sure that all your employees can benefit in one way or another.

Whatever’s important to your employees, there are employee benefits available to support them. Whether that be improving their health and fitness or reducing their monthly outgoings, there are benefits available that can help.

This entirely depends on the needs and wants of your employees, which can vary hugely. 

One way to ensure your employee benefits package meets the needs of your employees is to provide flexible benefits, where employees can adjust their benefits to suit their needs. Find out more about flexible benefits. 

It’s also important to keep an eye on emerging trends in employee benefits as the industry is constantly changing to keep pace with the changing needs of employees. Read our guide to Employee benefits trends in 2023. 

In terms of the employee benefits employees value the most, read our extensive guide - What are the best employee benefits according to employees?

For salary sacrifice schemes, where employees can exchange a portion of their gross salary in return for a benefit such as a bike on the Bike Scheme for example, employees and employers gain National Insurance benefits while employees also save on tax. 

The tax advantages employers and employees gain from this vary from scheme to scheme and depending on the tax bracket employees fall into. 

For more information, browse our range of salary sacrifice schemes. 

With the advanced features of our employee benefits platform, you have scheme eligibility options, which allow you to ensure employees have access to the benefits that are suitable and relevant to them. 

In some cases, employees may not be eligible for certain schemes for various reasons. For example, if an employee takes advantage of a salary sacrifice scheme such as the Bike Scheme, they may be ineligible to apply for another salary sacrifice scheme as this may take their gross salary below the legal minimum wage. 

Examples such as this are automatically catered for within our employee benefits platform, but you can set scheme eligibility parameters to suit your business and your employees. 

Ultimately, in many cases it’s not just allowed but is appropriate to ensure employees are provided the employee benefits that are right for them and that they’re still eligible for. 

The cost of employee benefits can vary depending on which provider you choose and how they choose to price the varying levels of employee benefits services they provide. 

Sometimes this can mean costs can vary by the type of platform you choose, the number of employee benefit schemes you include and any other add-ons such as extra support or bespoke branding, for example. 

Advanced features like Flexible Benefits can also cost more, but the ROI of a more advanced platform can often be greater. For more information on the cost of employee benefits, get in touch and we’ll walk you through. 

For more information on how the cost can vary, read our guide How much do employee benefits cost?