How to design a global benefits plan
Remote's experts outline how to provide benefits that are locally relevant and globally competitive, how to maintain compliance when expanding globally, and how to create equality and build trust across your multinational team!
- How to establish an equitable global benefits program
- How to maintain compliance with local labor laws
- How different cultural norms and expectations can affect your benefits plans
- How to attract and retain top talent with competitive benefits for global workers
- When and how to provide benefits to contractors
For your reference: Download the guide · research/permanent-establishment-risk-guide
Download the guide
Looking to provide top global benefits but unsure where to begin?
Delivering strong benefits and promoting fairness across your team doesn’t have to be complex. Remote hires in 70+ countries worldwide. In our free Global Benefits Guide, our experts outline what offering global benefits involves and show how to implement them in ways that fit your company’s specific needs and goals.
Current landscape of remote and flexible working
The importance of remote and flexible working can't be overstated in today's environment, but which employees place the highest value on these provisions?
By surveying 10,000 full-time employees across different genders, industries, job functions, countries, and parental statuses, we uncovered the most in-demand employee benefits in 2022. The following highlights provide a preview of the insights available in the full research report:
- Our research found that health insurance is the most important benefit in the USA
- Additional parental leave is the top benefit for parents with one child
- Employees in the Netherlands want employer contributions for home office setup
Highlights from the research
The Remote Global Benefits Guide outlines which benefits employees value most.
Parents with one child place greater importance on remote work than parents of multiple children
Working remotely matters most to parents with one child, although employees generally consider remote work important regardless of family status or future plans. Remote work combined with flexible hours lets parents arrange work around their family’s needs.
Companies should recognize that many employees are most productive outside the traditional 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM timeframe, often due to childcare or other external commitments.
Letting employees select hours that suit them can lower stress and burnout, reduce absences, and boost job satisfaction.
Offering remote work and flexible hours increases employers’ chances of attracting skilled professionals with young children who are actively seeking roles with those benefits.
Employees in the Netherlands place the highest value on remote work
Dutch employers and workers are more accustomed to fully remote or hybrid models. Even before the pandemic, the Netherlands had a flexible working culture, which may explain why surveyed employees there are likelier than those in other countries to view remote work as an important benefit. Employers hiring in the Netherlands should enable remote work to attract and keep top talent.
The UK, Germany, and USA rank behind the Netherlands, while employees in France are least likely to rate remote work as important, whether it’s offered part-time or full-time.
Remote work matters most for employees in advertising and IT roles
Full-time remote work is most valued by employees in advertising roles, whereas part-time remote work is more important for those in IT roles.
Whether part-time or full-time, remote work is considerably less popular among employees in production and sales roles than in other functions. Employers may need to make remote options more accessible for these roles so those workers can also experience the benefits remote work provides.
This underscores the value of providing remote-work options—at least part-time—when they fit the role’s responsibilities. The most effective benefits packages consider who the employees are and are tailored to those groups.
Top employee benefits that influence a job move
We surveyed 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US to identify which benefits people deem most desirable when thinking about changing jobs, across genders, parental status, job roles, and industries. When weighing a move, workers compare their current benefits to those offered elsewhere to decide whether to stay and, if leaving, which vacancies to apply for.
Whether an employer’s priority is attracting or retaining talent, our survey of 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US found that flexible working hours, company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions, and early finishes on Fridays are the top three perks to include in benefits packages. From an employee health perspective, US employees place greater importance on paid time off for self-care/mental health and private and family health insurance than respondents in the European countries we surveyed. Residents of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK generally have universal healthcare, whereas in the US medical costs are an individual responsibility.
Therefore, employers should design customized benefits packages that reflect what employees in their region value most. Providing medical insurance to help US employees with healthcare costs shows care and helps maintain equity across a global team.
Across almost every job function, employees want flexible work hours—particularly in HR
Flexible working is the top benefit in every job function except production and other roles. Employers with many staff in production or in roles not covered in our survey may be better served by adding company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions to their benefits.
Across the survey, access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms at the office ranks highest for employees in advertising roles.
Regardless of industry, employers should consider providing private, dedicated spaces for parents to breastfeed. Alongside promoting inclusion, this supports new parents returning to work and can attract a more diverse pool of high-quality candidates.
