5 Employee benefits to motivate your staff

The benefits that are offered to the employees say a lot about the business. There is a difference between having high-value benefits and merely naming something that your staff is already entitled to as benefits (such as holiday and sick pay). However, when done right, the benefits can have significant effects on the overall happiness and motivation of your team as well as be a great way to attract some new talent during the recruitment process, making you stand out as a desirable workplace. Here are 5 benefits that are often believed to be the most valued by employees. 

Private healthcare

Offering health insurance as an employee benefit is particularly popular in countries like the US, where healthcare isn’t free. However, there are many countries, such as Spain, that do offer universal, or sometimes referred to as state, healthcare. While it’s great to have it available to everyone, free healthcare systems, understandably, tend to have longer waiting times and generally lower quality service due to the high demand. 

In that case, private healthcare is incredibly valuable, yet not something many people can afford. In Spain, for example, Excelan private clinic offers all-round medical transportation, nursing, 24/7 whatsapp appointments and many other exclusive services in Marbella and Costa del Sol, which local employees would undoubtedly find highly valuable. 

A good pension scheme

If an employee is looking to settle down in a particular workplace long-term, they are more likely to do so with a company that ensures a stable future for them. A good pension scheme is one of the key ways to do this, since the worker is not only relying on their state pension but also has a separate pot available for them after retiring. 

It’s important that the pension services you choose to use are trustworthy, reliable and offer a good selection of schemes. Additionally, many businesses introduce their own workplace pension schemes, promising to match 50% or even 100% of their pension deductions with their own money, to help the pot grow quicker.

Flexible working

Flexible working is a benefit that has been growing rapidly in popularity ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, when many businesses and their teams realised that being in the office is not essential to achieve high levels of productivity and teamwork. While some people will prefer the office environment, there are many who will be more than happy to work from home, in a hybrid way or even while travelling around the world. The flexibility may also come in the form of varying working hours. Giving that option to your employees shows that you trust them and are looking out for their personal needs. 

Health and fitness

There is a wide range of health and fitness benefits you can introduce in your business and they are generally highly appreciated by the employees. Whether that’s free gym, yoga or other fitness classes, free healthy meals, discounted massages or mental counselling sessions - you cannot go wrong with it. These are the sort of luxuries that the majority of people would like to introduce into their lives but don’t have the budget for them or perhaps need that extra little push. 

Personal growth

Last but not least, offering your staff the opportunities to further educate themselves, gain new skills and gain some personal growth is not only important to them but also incredibly beneficial to you as their employer. This is typically done in a form of offering employees paid online or in-person courses on certain topics, organising regular conferences and team trips for educational purposes, providing them with various materials and resources for gaining both job role-related and interpersonal skills. 

Personal growth benefits show your workers that you want them to keep learning and growing, as long as they have such a desire themselves. It prevents them feeling as though they are stuck in this one role, where they cannot improve or achieve anymore than they already have. As for your business, you may be compromising budget and time but you are also supporting a team that is motivated to always learn, improve and become more skillful in what they do.