Guidance for building a global benefits plan
Remote's experts explain how to design benefits that meet local needs and stay competitive globally, how to maintain compliance as you expand internationally, and how to promote equity and foster trust across your multinational team!
- Steps for creating an equitable global benefits program
- How to stay compliant with local employment laws
- How cultural norms and expectations can influence your benefits plans
- How to attract and retain top talent by offering exceptional benefits to global workers
- When to offer benefits to contractors and the best way to do so
Download the guide · research/permanent-establishment-risk-guide
Download the guide
Looking to provide top global benefits but unsure where to begin?
Providing comprehensive benefits and achieving fairness across your team can be straightforward. Remote hires in 70+ countries worldwide. In our free Global Benefits Guide, our experts outline what offering global benefits involves and how to introduce them in a way that aligns with your organisation’s unique needs and objectives.
The current landscape of remote and flexible working
Remote and flexible working are indispensable in today’s environment, but which employees place the greatest value on these arrangements?
By surveying 10,000 full-time employees across genders, industries, job functions, countries, and parental statuses, we identified the most sought-after employee benefits in 2022. Below are highlights that offer a glimpse of the insights available in the full research report:
- Our analysis shows that private medical insurance ranks as the top priority in the USA
- For parents of one child, additional parental leave is the benefit they consider most important
- In the Netherlands, employees expect contributions from their employer towards setting up a home office
Key research findings
The Remote Global Benefits Guide outlines the benefits employees value most.
Parents with a single child place greater value on remote work than parents with multiple children
Parents of one child rate the option to work remotely highest, though across family statuses and future plans most employees still view remote work as important. Remote work and flexible hours allow parents to structure work around their family’s needs.
Employers should recognise that for many staff, peak productivity falls outside the traditional 9 am–5 pm window, often because of childcare or other external commitments.
Allowing staff to pick the hours that suit them can lower stress and burnout, reduce employee absences and improve job satisfaction.
Employers who provide remote work and flexible hours are more likely to attract highly skilled professionals with young children who are actively seeking roles with these provisions.
Employees in the Netherlands place the highest value on remote work
Employers in the Netherlands are accustomed to staff working fully remotely or in hybrid arrangements. The country had a flexible working culture even before the pandemic. That context may explain why, among the countries we surveyed, Dutch employees are most likely to see remote work as an important benefit. Employers hiring in the Netherlands should enable remote work to attract and retain top talent.
The UK, Germany, and USA trail the Netherlands, while employees in France are least likely to consider remote work important whether it is offered part-time or full-time.
Remote work matters most to employees in advertising and IT roles
Employees in advertising roles prioritise full-time remote work, whereas part-time remote work is most valued by those in IT roles.
Across both part-time and full-time arrangements, employees in production and sales roles express much lower preference for remote work than other groups. This suggests employers should explore ways to make remote work more accessible for these functions so those workers can also discover and enjoy the benefits remote work brings.
This underlines the value of offering remote work opportunities at least on a part-time basis when the role allows. The most effective benefits packages consider the types of employees they will serve and are customised accordingly.
The most important employee benefits when considering a job move
We surveyed 10,000 full-time employees across France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US to identify which benefits matter most when people contemplate changing jobs, broken down by gender, parental status, job role and industry. When weighing a potential move, workers typically compare their current benefits to those on offer elsewhere. That comparison influences whether they stay or leave and, once they decide to depart, narrows which roles they will pursue.
Our survey of 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US shows that whether an employer’s goal is to attract or retain talent, the top three perks to include are flexible working hours, company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions, and early finishes on Fridays. From a health benefit perspective, employees in the US rate annual leave for self-care/mental health and private and family private medical insurance as more important than respondents in any of the European countries we surveyed. Those living in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK have access to universal healthcare, whereas in the US medical fees are generally an individual cost.
Therefore, employers must develop customised benefits packages that reflect what is most valued in each business region. Providing medical insurance to help US employees with healthcare expenses will demonstrate your commitment and support equity across your global team.
Across nearly all job functions, employees desire flexible work hours, especially those in HR
Flexible working is also the top benefit for every job function except production and other unspecified roles. Employers with large numbers of staff in production or roles not explicitly listed in our survey may be better served by incorporating company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions into their benefits packages.
Elsewhere in the results, access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms on site matters most to employees in advertising roles.
Regardless of industry, employers should consider providing dedicated private spaces for parents to breastfeed. Beyond promoting inclusion, these spaces help welcome and support new parents returning to work and are likely to attract a more diverse pool of high-quality candidates.
