How to create a global benefits plan
Remote's specialists explain how to provide benefits that are locally relevant yet competitive globally, how to remain compliant when expanding internationally, and how to foster equity and trust across your multinational team.
- How to develop an equitable global benefits programme
- How to ensure compliance with local labour laws
- How cultural norms and expectations can affect your benefits plans
- How to attract and keep top talent by offering excellent benefits to global workers
- When and how to provide benefits to contractors
Download the guide · research/permanent-establishment-risk-guide
Download the guide
Unsure where to begin when offering the best global benefits?
Providing excellent benefits and promoting equality across your workforce need not be complex. At Remote, we hire in 70+ countries worldwide. In our free Global Benefits Guide, our experts explain what offering global benefits entails and outline how to implement them in a way that suits your company’s distinct needs and objectives.
The current state of remote and flexible working
Remote and flexible working are clearly important today, but which employees value these arrangements most?
By surveying 10,000 full-time employees across different genders, industries, job functions, countries and parental statuses, we identified the most in-demand employee benefits for 2022. The highlights below provide a preview of the insights available in the full research report:
- In our research, health insurance emerged as the top priority in the USA
- Additional parental leave is the most valued benefit among parents with one child
- Employees in the Netherlands want employer contributions for home office setup
Research highlights
The Remote Global Benefits Guide explains which benefits employees value most.
Parents of one child place more value on remote work than those with multiple children
The opportunity to work remotely matters most to parents of one child, although the majority of employees—regardless of family status or future plans—agree that remote work is important. Remote working and flexible hours enable parents to arrange work around their family circumstances.
Companies should recognise that many employees’ most productive hours fall outside the traditional 09:00–17:00 window, frequently because of childcare or other external commitments.
Allowing staff to select the hours that suit them can lower the risk of stress and burnout, reduce absences and increase job satisfaction.
Offering remote work and flexible hours improves employers’ chances of attracting highly skilled professionals with young children who are actively seeking roles with these provisions.
Employees in the Netherlands value remote work most
Dutch employers are accustomed to staff working fully remotely or in hybrid models. Even before the pandemic, the Netherlands maintained a highly flexible working culture. This may explain why, of all countries surveyed, employees from the Netherlands are most likely to view remote work as an important benefit. Employers hiring Dutch workers should facilitate remote work to attract and retain top talent.
The UK, Germany and the USA follow behind the Netherlands, with employees in France 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
Full-time remote work is most important to employees in advertising roles, whereas part-time remote work ranks higher for those in IT.
Whether part-time or full time, remote work is considerably less desired by employees in production and sales roles than in other functions. Employers should consider making remote options more accessible for these roles so they can also benefit from remote working.
This underscores the importance of offering remote work at least on a part-time basis where it aligns with the role. The most effective benefits packages consider the types of employees they target and are tailored accordingly.
The most important employee benefits when considering a job move
We surveyed 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US to identify which benefits are most desirable when contemplating a job move, across different genders, parental statuses, job roles and industries. When considering a change in employment, workers tend to compare their current benefits with those offered by other employers to decide whether to stay or to apply for new positions.
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 top three perks to consider including, based on our survey of 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. From a health-related benefit perspective, employees in the US rate paid time off for self-care/mental health and private and family health insurance as more important than employees 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 an individual cost.
It is therefore vital for employers to develop customised benefits packages that reflect what is most valued in each business region. Providing medical insurance to support US employees with healthcare costs demonstrates care and helps maintain equity across your global team.
In almost every job function, employees want flexible work hours, especially HR
Flexible working is the most important benefit across job functions except production and other roles. Employers with large numbers of staff in production or in roles not specifically listed in our survey could be better served by incorporating company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions into their packages.
Further survey results show that access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms in the office is most important to employees in advertising roles.
Regardless of industry, employers should consider creating private breastfeeding spaces for parents. As well as promoting inclusion, this supports new parents returning to the workplace and is likely to attract a more diverse range of high-quality candidates.
