Guide to building a global benefits plan
Remote's experts explain how to deliver benefits that are relevant locally yet competitive globally, how to maintain compliance when expanding abroad, and how to foster fairness and trust across your multinational team.
- How to create an equitable global benefits programme
- How to remain compliant with local employment laws
- How cultural norms and expectations influence your benefits plans
- How to attract and retain top talent with compelling benefits for global workers
- When to offer benefits to contractors and how to implement them
Download the guide – research/permanent-establishment-risk-guide
Download the guide
Want to provide the best global benefits but feel unsure where to begin?
Providing excellent benefits and ensuring fairness across your team needn’t be complicated. Remote hires people in 70+ countries worldwide. Our free Global Benefits Guide explains what offering global benefits involves and outlines how to implement them so they fit your company’s specific needs and goals.
The current state of remote and flexible working
The value of remote and flexible working is clear in modern life, so which staff members prize these provisions most?
We surveyed 10,000 full-time employees across genders, industries, job functions, countries and parental statuses to identify the most in-demand employee benefits in 2022. The summaries below offer a sense of the insights contained in the full research report:
- Our study showed that private medical insurance is considered most important in the USA
- For parents of one child, additional parental leave is the most important benefit
- Staff in the Netherlands want their employer to contribute towards home office setup
Research highlights
The Remote Global Benefits Guide explains which benefits employees rate most highly.
Parents with one child place greater value on remote work than parents with multiple children
The chance to work remotely matters most to parents with one child, although most employees — regardless of family status or future plans — regard remote work as important. Both remote work and flexible hours enable parents to arrange work in a way that fits their household needs.
Organisations should acknowledge that many employees are most productive outside the conventional 9 am–5 pm timeframe, often because of childcare or other external commitments.
Permitting staff to choose hours that suit them can reduce stress and burnout, lower absenteeism and improve job satisfaction.
Providing remote work and flexible hours increases an employer’s chances of attracting skilled professionals with young children who are actively seeking roles with these provisions.
Employees in the Netherlands place the greatest value on remote work
Dutch employers are accustomed to staff working fully remotely or in hybrid patterns. Even before the pandemic, the Netherlands had a notably flexible working culture, which may explain why Dutch employees are the most likely, among the countries surveyed, to view remote work as an important benefit. Employers hiring in the Netherlands should support remote work to attract and retain top talent.
The UK, Germany and USA follow the Netherlands, while employees in France are least likely to rate remote work as important, whether it is offered part-time or full-time.
Remote work is most important to employees in advertising and IT roles
Employees in advertising roles place the greatest importance on full-time remote work, whereas those in IT roles prioritise part-time remote work.
Whether part-time or full-time, remote work is markedly less sought after by employees in production and sales roles than by other groups. This indicates employers should explore ways to make remote work more accessible for those functions so those staff can also benefit.
This underlines the value of offering remote work at least in a part-time capacity where it aligns with the role. The most effective benefits packages are those tailored to the specific types of employees they will serve.
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 are most desirable when contemplating a job change, broken down by gender, parental status, job role and industry. When considering a move, workers compare their current benefits to those available elsewhere; this comparison helps them decide whether to stay, and once they choose to leave it guides which positions they will apply for.
Whether an employer’s priority is to attract new talent or to retain existing staff, flexible working, company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions, and early finishes on Fridays were the top three perks identified in our survey of 10,000 full-time employees across France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. From a health-benefit perspective, employees in the US place greater importance on annual leave for self-care/mental health and on private and family private medical insurance than respondents in the European countries we surveyed. Residents of France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK all have access to universal healthcare, whereas in the US medical fees are generally an individual cost.
Therefore, employers should develop customised benefits packages that reflect what is most valued in each business region. Offering medical insurance to help US employees with healthcare expenses signals care and helps maintain equity across a global team.
In almost every job function, employees want flexible working – especially HR
Flexible working is also the most important benefit across all job functions except production and other roles. Employers with large numbers of staff in production or in roles not listed specifically in our survey may be better served by including company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions in their benefit packages.
Elsewhere in the survey, access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms in the office is most important to employees in advertising roles.
Regardless of industry, employers should consider providing private, dedicated spaces for parents to breastfeed. Whilst promoting inclusion, this also helps welcome and support new parents returning to the workplace and is likely to attract a more diverse pool of high-quality candidates.
