Planning global benefits: a practical guide
Remote's experts outline how to deliver benefits that are locally appropriate yet competitive worldwide, how to maintain compliance when scaling internationally, and how to promote fairness and foster trust across a multinational team.
- Designing a fair global benefits programme
- Meeting local employment law requirements
- How cultural norms and expectations affect benefits design
- Attracting and retaining top talent with competitive global benefits
- Deciding when and how to provide benefits to contractors
Download the Guide · research/permanent-establishment-risk-guide
Download the guide
Looking to provide top global benefits but unsure where to begin?
Providing excellent benefits and ensuring parity across your team need not be complicated. Remote hires in 70+ countries worldwide. In our free Global Benefits Guide, our experts explain what offering global benefits involves and outline practical steps to implement them so they fit your company’s specific needs and objectives.
The current landscape of remote and flexible working
Remote and flexible working have become indispensable in today’s world, but which employees value these arrangements most?
By surveying 10,000 full-time employees in 2022 across different genders, industries, job functions, countries and parental statuses, we identified the employee benefits in highest demand. The highlights below provide a snapshot of the insights available in the full research report:
- Private medical insurance ranked highest among respondents in the USA
- For parents of one child, additional parental leave was the benefit they valued most
- Employees in the Netherlands want contributions from their employer towards home office setup
Key research findings
The Remote Global Benefits Guide explains which benefits employees rate most highly.
Parents with one child place more value on remote work than those with multiple children
The option to work remotely is especially valued by parents of a single child, although most employees—regardless of family situation or future plans—agree that remote work matters. Remote working combined with flexible hours lets parents organise work around their family commitments.
Companies should recognise that many employees’ most productive hours fall outside the standard working day, often because of childcare or other external commitments.
Permitting staff to choose hours that suit them can reduce the chances of stress and burnout, lower absence rates and improve job satisfaction.
By offering remote work and flexible hours, employers are more likely to attract highly skilled professionals with young children who are actively seeking roles with those provisions.
Employees in the Netherlands value remote work most
Employers in the Netherlands are accustomed to staff working fully remotely or in hybrid arrangements. Flexibility was common there even before the pandemic, which may explain why Dutch respondents are more likely than those in other surveyed countries to view remote work as an important benefit. Employers recruiting in the Netherlands should enable remote working to attract and retain top talent.
The UK, Germany and the USA follow the Netherlands, while employees in France are least likely to say remote work is important, whether offered part-time or full-time.
Remote work matters most to employees in advertising and IT roles
Employees in advertising roles place the greatest value on full-time remote work, whereas those in IT tend to prefer part-time remote arrangements.
Whether part-time or full-time, remote work is markedly less desired by employees in production and sales roles than in other functions. This suggests employers should make remote options more accessible for these job types so those staff can also experience the benefits remote work offers.
This underlines the importance of offering remote-work opportunities at least on a part-time basis when the role permits. The most effective benefits packages reflect the kinds of employees they are aimed at and are tailored accordingly.
Benefits that matter most when changing jobs
Our survey of 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US revealed which benefits are considered most desirable when people contemplate moving jobs, across genders, parental statuses, roles and industries. When contemplating a change of employer, workers typically compare their existing benefits with those on offer elsewhere; that comparison helps them decide whether to stay and, if they opt to leave, which vacancies to apply for.
Whether an employer’s primary aim is to attract top talent or to retain it, flexible working hours, company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions, and early finishes on Fridays are the three perks most worth including in benefits packages, according to our survey of 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. From a health-benefit perspective, employees in the US regard annual leave for self-care/mental health and private and family private medical insurance as more important than those in any of the European countries we surveyed. People living in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK have access to universal healthcare; in the US, by contrast, medical fees are an individual responsibility.
It is therefore essential for employers to create customised benefits packages that reflect regional priorities. Providing medical insurance to assist US employees with healthcare costs will show care and help maintain equity across a global team.
In almost every job function, employees want flexible work hours — especially in HR
Flexible working is the most important benefit for every job function except production and other roles. Organisations with many staff in production roles or in roles not specifically listed in our survey may be better served by including company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions in their benefit packages.
Further survey results indicate that access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms in the office matters most to employees in advertising roles.
Regardless of industry, employers should consider providing dedicated private spaces for parents to breastfeed. As well as promoting inclusion, this supports new parents returning to work and is likely to attract a more diverse pool of high-quality candidates.
