Small Business and Employee Benefits
[ad#ad1]In today’s workplace, employees look at many factors before accepting an offer of employment. Besides salary, employees want to see paid holidays, vacation, paid sick leave, and health insurance. All of these can be grouped together under the umbrella name employee benefits. Large corporations are often able to offer a very extensive package of employee benefits. Small business owners, on the other hand, must examine closely which if any benefits to offer employees. This can sometimes make gaining and keeping quality employees more difficult.
Small businesses often offer paid holidays. The number is usually significantly fewer than offered by a large corporation, but usually includes Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Some even include an employee’s birthday.
Small businesses are most generally in the habit of offering vacation pay. The most common option for small businesses is to offer one week paid leave after one year of service. Many times the amount of leave allowed per year stays the same forever more. Some mid-size companies to large corporations allow more leave after longer periods of employment.
One benefit that can set one company apart from the competition is paid sick leave. Most small business owners feel that they can not afford to provide a benefit at this level. Paying an employee not to work sounds like a losing proposition. The fact is that most small businesses would gain by allowing up to a week of paid sick time. This practice would encourage employees to stay at home when they are too ill to work. This can increase productivity by allowing an employee to rest and heal instead of pushing himself beyond physical limits. It also encourages those who are contagious to stay at home and avoid contaminating other employees resulting in more lost time among employees.
The biggest benefit employees look for is health insurance. With the rising cost of medical care, insurance has become a necessity in most households. Unfortunately, most people, especially those working for a small business, can not afford an individual insurance plan. Group plans offer much lower premiums to individuals. Sadly, even in a group plan, the premium is often much higher than an individual employee can afford. Small business owners can afford to offer group health insurance to employees. Many would argue this point.
Today, a myriad of options are available to small business owners to make group health insurance affordable. The most common, and probably the most affordable choice, is for small business owners to band together when shopping for insurance to make a larger group. This is the secret that makes large corporations able to offer insurance at affordable rates. Insurance companies offer lower rates to larger groups based on the premise that a lower percentage of group members will have serious health problems at one time. If small business owners combine on the same policy, the rates for individual group members come down to a level that can be afforded. Many employees look at benefits as well as salary before accepting a job. Paid holidays, vacation, sick leave, and health insurance are some of the benefits looked for. Small businesses can afford to offer benefits even though they may not offer as many as large corporations.