Why report on employee benefits?
When is the best time to deliver benefit statements?
What is the cost?
Q:
Why report on employee benefits?
A: Employers
spend up to 40% of payroll on employee benefits, but employee surveys
indicate that employees believe the percentage is less than 20%. Hence,
employers report on their benefits package for the following reasons:
- To convey the lengths the company goes to provide comprehensive benefits
- To make employees aware of the true cost of the benefits the employer provides
- To detail the total compensation package (salary plus benefits) the employee is receiving
- To educate employees and their dependents about the existence of employer-provided benefits
- To increase knowledge about benefit features and thus enhancing perceived value
- To periodically keep employees up-to-date regarding benefit account balances
- To enable employees to see all benefits and their associated costs in one document
- To help employees plan for their own security.
Q: When is the best time to deliver benefit statements?
A: Timing is of critical importance. There is no universal "best time" to deliver benefit statements to your employees. Each company is different. You must weigh each of the following to determine what is the best time for your company. It may depend on the following:
- Salary Changes
Is there any one time in the course of the year that the bulk or a majority of your employees have a salary change? If so, you may want to deliver the reports shortly after that change. Salary changes cause a major change in the calculation of most employee benefits. Having the most current salary is most critical. - Open Enrollment
Do you want to show your employees the benefits that they had or the benefits that they have? There is a major difference. You can show them the cost of the benefits they had, but most employees would prefer to see their new benefits. - Retirement Plan Date
Some Defined Benefit Plans do not report their year-end data until seven (7) months after the plan year ends. If you prepared a benefit statement in the 6th month of this scenario, the retirement data in the report would already be 1.5 years old. - Fiscal Year or Plan Year
Some companies change all their benefits at a certain time each year. You want to present the most current data to your employees. - Best Time for You
Your input is critical. Some times of the year are better than others. When will you have the most time to spend on the data collection?
A: Benefit Reports, Inc. does not cost our product/services utilizing "unit pricing". The cost of each project is individually determined in order to provide each customer a true cost of services. For each type of benefit statement, our pricing is based on three criteria:
- Number of employees receiving benefit statements
- The complexity of the client's benefits package and
- The number of data merges required to create our customer database.
Benefit Reports, Inc. will provide potential customers a formal cost proposal when the above information is provided to us. Once we agree on a cost based on the above criteria, the "per employee cost" will be fixed for the length of your contract.
According to the most recent US Chamber of Commerce report, an average Company with 250 employees spends $4,154,250 per year ($16,617 per employee) for its employee benefits package. That amounts to upwards of 40% of payroll costs per year for employee benefits!
AS AN EMPLOYER, YOU SHOULD NEVER HESITATE TO ADVERTISE A PRODUCT OR SERVICE THAT COSTS 40% OF PAYROLL!