Employee Benefits
Most small business owners really do want to be able to offer good employee benefits. What ends up factoring into the decision is available budget and what you end up having to settle for offering when your good intentions and your bank account don’t exactly line up in the right columns.   One thing the insurance industry is focusing on and will likely to continue doing is offering programs and rebates on things that employees can do to stay healthy or get healthy and stay that way. The reason, of course, is simple. If your employees are healthy, they are less likely to need a doctor's visit unexpectedly or a very expensive stay in the hospital.   You and the insurance companies both want the same thing; an employee who is productive, doesn’t miss time out of work for illness and who isn’t blowing up their health insurance premiums. With that in mind, there some things your employees may not be telling you about their employee benefits that would help both you and your insurance carriers meet the goal of healthy, happy employees.  

What Do You Need To Hear About Your Employee Benefits?

  Cheap Benefits Cost Them A Lot - The idea of cheap benefits being better than no benefits is only true for satisfying the ACA guidelines, but it doesn’t help your employee and it certainly doesn’t feel like a benefit when they are spending hard earned money on making up the difference in what is not covered under a cut-rate plan.   Low-cost benefits usually raise their rates pretty steadily. It’s kind of like a ponzi scheme of sorts. Get you in on the cheap and they start jacking up the costs up once you get comfortable. They count on you not really wanting to undo everything you did to sign up and it works pretty well until employees bemoan your decision.   If you are losing good people, bad benefits could be a reason. Employees who are not able to properly access medical care due to coverage issues end up missing more time out of work trying to recover themselves. When employees assume you don’t care about offering good benefits and they go find an employer who does. If you only knew…   If They Had Wellness Programs They’d Use Them - Better insurance carriers offer rebates or big discounts on gyms in-network and weight loss programs to those employees who would like to slim down and get fit. You’d probably be surprised by the amount of them that would love to take advantage of an offer like this if they had the opportunity. Problem is, the cut-rate plans usually do not offer such a thing.   Employees who regularly work out are less susceptible to illness, fatigue and report lower stress during the workweek. That translation to you is your employees will be happier and more motivated just by offering them a way to workout affordably. Low-Cost Dental Plans Are Worse Than No Dental Plan - If there is ever an issue workers have with employee benefits, it is dental plans. Good dental plans are great and low-cost dental plans are usually pretty terrible. These plans barely cover the basics, have steep co-pays and cover very little. This leaves your employees feeling frustrated over their dental health.   For employees with children, this can be a very difficult thing to overcome. Children can require a lot of dental coverage and when yours covers little, your employees could be making decisions to work elsewhere so they can get their little ones properly covered for dental work.   There is plenty of research linking heart health to good dental hygiene. Dental health also plays an important role in the digestive system. Think about it. If you are what you eat, then if you don’t take care of your mouth and your teeth, why would you feel well?   You’d want to know if what you offer is not enough, wouldn’t you? How about finding ways to offer a much better plan that would likely not cost more (or better yet less) than you are paying now?  

PEOs Save Small Business Owners Big Money On Employee Benefits

Have you ever heard of a PEO? This HR outsourcing solution is a great way to tap into phenomenal savings on insurance and all other aspects of outsourced HR functions like payroll and HR law compliance. Most PEOs for small businesses work on a monthly fee per employee and their big buying power on insurance plans means you are not paying a lot for benefits. It’s a win/win with a PEO. You save money and your employees can stop talking behind your back about their cut-rate employee benefits. How can you lose?

If you’d like to find out more about how PEOs can help you provide great benefits and payroll management at less than you are paying now, contact us today for a free consultation.

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