Whether you currently offer benefits or are ready to start offering them, creating an employee benefits plan is an overwhelming task for any small business owner. The process is confusing, time-consuming, and difficult to balance wants and budget.
If you’re undertaking this effort, follow these tips to create an economical employee benefits plan that’s appealing to employers and employees.
⇾ Read Now:Does A Small Business Need a Benefits Consultant?
How to Create an Economical Employee Benefits Plan
1. Know your options
Before you create a benefits plan, it’s helpful to have a clear picture of all the options available to offer to your employees. These are the most common benefits to choose from – with several different types under each of these umbrellas.
Types of Employee Benefits:
- Medical, dental, and/or vision insurance
- Flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and/or Heath savings accounts (HSAs)
- College saving plans (for employer’s children)
- Continuing education/college credit reimbursement
- Retirement plans
- Life and/or disability insurance
- Personal time off (incl. vacation, sick days, and personal days)
- Stock options
Consider this list and which options you want to offer.
2. Survey your employees
The best way to figure out what benefits to offer is to ask your employees directly. The best way to do this is in the form of a survey (anonymous, ideally) sent out to all employees.
The typical approach is to list out optional benefits and ask your employees to rank them in order of preference. You’ll also want to ask them what benefits they want to see, what’s most important to them, and an option to add in additional comments.
We recommend sending this out as an anonymous survey because oftentimes benefits are highly personal, and you want your employees to feel completely comfortable answering questions honestly. You’re also looking for quantitive research, so it’s not necessary to know which employee suggested what.
Once you have all your responses, sit down and look for commonalities. You may see clear patterns emerging with the responses, which will give you a clear direction on where to start picking benefits.
3. Define your budget
Setting a budget is absolutely critical for a benefits package that is useful to both the employer and the employee. In many cases, this will impact what benefits you choose. Define your budget before you begin the task of creating any benefits plan.
4. Work with an expert
The above is just the start – once you’ve figured out what your employees want and your budget you still have an endless sea of options to swim through. The most effective way to find specific options that work for your business and needs is to enlist the help of a benefits planning expert.
If you come to an expert with the data you’ve gathered above, they’ll be able to match you with plans. This saves you a huge amount of time spent on research and making phone calls to pull numbers.
⇾ Read Now:How to Find Small Business Benefit Planning Services in MN
Benefits Planning Services with Greater Midwest Financial Group
Planning for Business Owners/Executives
For business owners, benefits planning requires additional considerations and paperwork.
Work with an advisor and get answers to your biggest executive benefit questions:
- What are the different types of stock options available to me and what are their tax consequences?
- Should I use my deferred compensation plan? How much of my compensation should I defer?
- How do insurance and fringe benefits impact my need for other insurance outside my company?
- How can I best navigate tax and planning issues?
Benefits Planning for Individuals
We also offer advice for your employees. They can receive support with choosing these benefits and more:
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- 401K/403b
- Stock options
- Deferred compensation
- Long Term Disability Insurance
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
- Health Savings Account (HSA)
- Flexible Savings Account (FSA)
Download Now: How to Create an Economical Employee Benefits Plan
Financial Strategies for Dental Professionals
Creating a benefits package is a challenge for many dental practices.
This guide breaks down the most popular options for benefits packages and some case study examples Greater Midwest Financial Group has handled for dental practices in the Midwest.
Greater Midwest Financial Group is a financial advisor firm serving St. Paul, Minneapolis and the wider Twin Cities area. We specialize in wealth management, retirement planning, asset management and other personal finance needs.
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto
