Small Business Benefits Blues
Health benefits are an integral part of the benefit package. They improve employee satisfaction, recruitment and retention strategies, as well as employee health and productivity. Despite these clear findings, small businesses typically put less emphasis on the importance of providing health benefits.
Small businesses make up the majority of U.S. businesses. In 2013, 82% of U.S. employers were considered small businesses, with 2.37 million of those employers NOT offering health benefits.
Why?
One of the reasons that small businesses decide against offering health benefits is because they believe the cost offsets the gain. Health benefits are indeed expensive, especially with rising premiums that are only getting higher.
But it’s important to note that health benefits are essential to hooking and keeping the talent that will in turn impact business. In a recent survey, more than three-quarters found health benefits extremely important when considering a job offer. And 47% of employees who declined a job offer did so because they accepted another position. Losing out on the talent you need will negatively impact your bottom line, so it’s important to invest in a benefits package that will win you top talent.
Similarly, the costs of recruiting can be contained with a better health benefits package. It costs $4,000 on average to fill an open position and takes an average of 52 days to fill the position. Those costs only rise when you struggle to convince talent to join your company and prolong the recruiting process.
Conclusion
Though small businesses tend to hold the misconception that investing in health benefits will be a high cost investment that won’t pay off, in actuality it can be an investment that can help cut recruitment and retention costs and put you ahead of your competitors!