Employer Strategies
Benefits & Compensation
Beyond wages, there is so much more an employer can offer an employee that improve their overall financial wellness. By covering some or all the cost of an employer-sponsored health plan, employers can help employees maintain their health. Prioritizing benefits including paid time off, consistent scheduling, and more robust, equitable 401k plans help employees plan for family expenses and future needs. Explore the case studies below to see how area companies are tackling these issues to address the needs of their workforce.
Strategy: Examine health care coverage and costs
How employers can help:
We’ve been able to improve the health benefits that we offer and been creative in ways of doing
that. So we changed to a high deductible HSA but in doing that we were able to contribute $1500
annually to each employee’s HSA.
One item to consider is a tiered approach for contributions based on the take-home pay of the
employees, so the lower-paid employees can actually pay a lower contribution to the plan vs
those who are higher paid. That has been a huge success that has helps to drive commitment from
our employees.
Strategy: Compensate with equity
How employers can help:
[It's not heroic—] I’m looking to grow my business. If I want my employees to surprise and
delight my clients—in that we would
be missed if we weren’t there—then my job is to do the same for my employees. It’s hard to find
good people, and I’m grateful
when I have them.
If you have employees who are that low-paid they are going to be very quick to jump to another
job somewhere else for just a little bit more money so we have to be very conscious about all
that. There's no one size fits all.
Strategy: Invest in the future of your workforce
How employers can help:
Our employee retirement account balances are higher, on average, than that of employees in the
same size small business market in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, meaning that our
employees are better positioned for retirement.
