The future of
employee
benefits

The opportunity to work remotely is most important to parents of one child, though most employees, regardless of family status or future plans, agree remote work is important. Remote work and flexible hours offer parents the opportunity to work in a way that best suits their family’s circumstances.

Companies should recognise that the most productive hours of many employees sit outside of the traditional 9 am-5 pm timeframe, often due to childcare or other external commitments.

Allowing staff to choose the hours that work best for them can decrease the likelihood of stress and burnout, reduce employee absences and improve job satisfaction.

By offering remote work and flexible hours, employers will have a better chance of attracting highly skilled professionals with young children that are actively searching for roles with these provisions.

Dutch employers are more used to their staff adopting a fully-remote or hybrid working model. Even before the pandemic, the Netherlands maintained a highly flexible working culture. This could explain why out of all of the countries surveyed, employees from the Netherlands are more likely to see remote work as an important benefit. Employers hiring Dutch workers should facilitate remote work to attract and retain top talent.

The UK, Germany, and USA follow behind the Netherlands, with employees in France the least likely to say remote work is important whether offered partially or all of the time.

Full-time remote work is most important to employees in advertising roles, while part-time remote work is most important to those in IT roles. 

Whether part-time or full time, remote work is significantly less desired by employees in production and sales roles than any other. This could highlight that employers need to make remote work more accessible for people working these job functions so that they too can discover and enjoy the benefits remote work brings. 

This shows the importance of offering remote work opportunities in at least a part-time capacity when it aligns with the function of the role. The best benefits packages are the ones that take into consideration the types of employees they will be offered to, and are tailored accordingly.

Flexible working is the most important employee benefit when considering a job change across the 10,000 full-time male and female employees we surveyed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. 

This could mean employees who currently have flexible work are less likely to switch to a company without it, and those who do not have the opportunity to work flexible hours at their current job are likely to be attracted to jobs that do offer this. Therefore, employers will see improvements in both their recruitment and retention by offering flexible work.

Flexible working is the most important benefit to both parents and non-parents, highlighting the importance of allowing all employees the freedom to work in a way that suits their circumstances best.

From the rest of the survey results, we can see that whilst they are valued by both groups, family health insurance, childcare assistance, and miscarriage leave are significantly more important to parents than non-parents.

To aid employee retention, businesses should implement benefits that not only cater to employees without children, but also remain valuable should they decide to start families. This reduces the likelihood of employees that are preparing to start families leaving the company to look for new jobs that better accommodate their changing circumstances.

Flexible working is also the most important benefit in every job function except production and other roles. Employers with high numbers of staff working in production roles and roles not listed specifically in our survey could be better off incorporating company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions into their benefit packages.

Looking at the rest of the survey results, we can see that access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms in the office is the most important to employees in advertising roles. 

However, no matter the industry you’re in, employers should always consider creating dedicated private 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 range of high quality candidates.

Our survey of all 10,000 employees has revealed the most important benefits when considering a change in job, but what matters most when it comes to wellness specifically?

According to Emma Dolby, Head of Recruitment and Apprenticeships at Direct Air, “Employees now place a high value in wellness perks such as access to mental health support, health care, and support for personal growth. Businesses offering benefits focused on employee wellness tend to have an employee-focused culture, meaning a healthy and happy work environment."

With healthy food in the office, home deliveries and meal stipends being the most important wellness benefits overall, it’s a good idea for global employers to consider adding this to their wellness perks packages.

Second on the list of the most important employee wellness benefits is access to time off work each month to spend on mental health improvement, which highlights just how vital it is for companies to actively support both the physical and mental health of employees.

For male employees, the most important wellness benefit is healthy food in the office, home deliveries or meal stipends. However, female employees are generally most interested in having time off of work specifically to improve their mental health. From one perspective, our survey results could suggest that female employees could face greater mental health challenges in the workplace than their male counterparts, or on the other hand, they could simply suggest that they value mental wellbeing more than male employees do.

Regardless, employers have a responsibility to monitor the mental wellbeing of all their staff through regular one-to-one interviews, surveys, reviews, and other initiatives that detect any instances of inequity that could result in any group struggling disproportionately with their mental health.The importance of monitoring and providing wellness and mental health benefits to employees is more important than ever.

The most important training-related benefit for both males and females is the opportunity to take part in technical courses or training for skills growth in their specific work field. This is a perk that benefits both employees and employers, staff will benefit from greater job satisfaction and improved knowledge, whilst employers will see better efficiency and increased staff retention.

Whether your workforce is more male or female dominated, providing career-specific training is crucial.

Employees in every country we surveyed agreed that technical courses or training for growing skills in their specific work field is the most important. Global companies with employees living in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK or the USA should include this within their benefits packages.

Setting up a home office can be an expensive cost for employees to take on, especially if the role requires specialist equipment. Which is why many of the employees we surveyed, especially those in the Netherlands, see it as important that monitors, desks, chairs and other equipment needed for remote work, is paid for at least partially by their employer.

Global remote employers that do not currently offer partial or full funding for home office equipment should consider including it in their benefits package, as across all of the workers we surveyed, 62.73% of employees feel it’s important for employers to finance at least part of their home office set up.

Looking from a regional level, partial financing for a home office setup is important to almost 70% of employees in the Netherlands, however it’s important to just over half of employees in the USA. This, once again, stresses the importance of a curated global benefit plan adjusted to the desires of the local population.

Sources and Methodology

We conducted a survey to 10,000 workers across the UK, the USA, Germany, France and The Netherlands