Understanding employee benefits
Working in the HR world, we ran across this interesting article which cautions that many may not understand their employee benefits.In a lot of organizations, a good benefits package can be worth a lot of money. In some cases, improving benefits, such as 401K and health insurance, can be more valuable than the direct cash benefits of a bigger raise or annual bonus.
A survey by Columbia's own Colonial Life Insurance found it was believed that a lot of employees may not fully understand the benefits their employers offer:
More than 90% of employers who responded said it was important to their business that employees understand and appreciate the value of their benefits. Only 21% of employers think their employees have a good understanding of their benefits. Nearly 5% think their employees know nothing at all about their benefits.
While this survey is limited in that it measured third-party perceptions, as opposed to actually determining the level of awareness held by employees, it still raises interesting questions about well the HR and corporate communication staff is doing at informing employees about their benefits.
As always, we encourage our readers to do their homework and be informed. So take a little time to make sure you know what YOUR employee benefits are. They could make your employment a lot more rewarding.
As always, we encourage our readers to do their homework and be informed. So take a little time to make sure you know what YOUR employee benefits are. They could make your employment a lot more rewarding.
I came across another article about a company recently going out of business. The 800# gorilla in the room was employee benefits. The employees interviewed didn't know what to do. Here is my link to it, http://benefitsandinsurance.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-you-need-to-understand-health-care.html