Most Popular Employee Benefits in UK - New Research
According to the Benefits Research 2007, published by Employee Benefits magazine, one in four employers now offer flexible benefits. However, most UK companies (57% of respondents) still offer staff a traditional 'core' package of employer-paid benefits.
London, OH (PRWEB) May 23, 2007
According to the Benefits Research 2007, published by Employee Benefits magazine, one in four employers now offer flexible benefits. However, most UK companies (57% of respondents) still offer staff a traditional 'core' package of employer-paid benefits.
The research, sponsored by JPMorgan INEST, also found that the types of core benefits that are typically offered have barely changed in recent years: life assurance (offered by 62%), employee assistance programmes (offered by 51%), increased number of annual leave days for long service (offered by 44%) still top the popular perks tables.
This year's research split out the different types of pensions on offer (defined benefit final salary, defined contribution money purchase, group personal pension (GPP) and stakeholder pensions), however taken as a whole the pensions top the poll of core, employer-paid benefits. "This is a good thing because our research into employee attitudes in 2006 'What employees really want' (http://www. employeebenefits. co. uk/cgi-bin/item. cgi? ap=1&id=1810 (http://www. employeebenefits. co. uk/cgi-bin/item. cgi? ap=1&id=1810)) showed that pensions are still highly rated," said Debi O'Donovan, editorial director of Employee Benefits.
Group personal pensions have overtaken defined benefit pensions as the most commonly offered type of pension. This trend is expected to continue as final salary schemes continue to close, leading to greater activity in the market among major pensions providers such as Standard Life, Norwich Union, Legal & General and Scottish Life. What we won't know until 2012 is what impact the government's incoming National Pension Savings Scheme will have on this landscape.
A trend to watch is the size of companies offering flexible benefits plans. There is great interest in flex among medium-sized companies to meet the demands of the recruitment market. This has led to the emergence of a many easy-to-administer off-the-shelf flexible benefits administration packages. Key providers in the flex admin market are Thomsons Online Benefits, Vebnet, You at Work and Motivano; many have paired up with major benefit consultants such as Watson Wyatt, Hewitt Associates, Mercer HR Consulting and Towers Perrin.
Under voluntary benefits schemes gym membership, healthcare cash plans, travel insurance and childcare vouchers top the list. The provider market for these types of affinity products has shrunk, for example Bringme is concentrating on flex, and Brinc has lost its backing from HBOS. However Marsh is still very active and new players such as Asperity are emerging.
KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS:
The research was conducted during January and February 2007 among 378 readers of Employee Benefits magazine and users of http://www. employeebenefits. co. uk/ (http://www. employeebenefits. co. uk/). The respondents were drawn from all types of organisations, half of which were privately owned (55%) and 17% were from the public sector. 48% were from organizations with more than 1,000 staff.
19% of employers offer a flexible benefits scheme to all staff and 8% to some.
52% of employers offer a voluntary benefits scheme to all staff, while 6% do offer them to some.
60% of employers offer benefits through salary sacrifice to all staff, while 12% offer this to some employees. Where they do offer benefits through salary sacrifice, 42% of this group pass the tax and national insurance savings back to employees, while 18% split the savings with them.
View full Benefits Research 2007 (http://www. employeebenefits. co. uk/item/2538)
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
Employee Benefits magazine is a UK-based publication which launched in 1997. It is read by nearly 10,000 compensation & benefits managers and HR people specialising in reward in British organisations.
Employee Benefits runs a number of information services - including the Employee Benefits Exhibition & Conference, the Employee Benefits Summit and www. employeebenefits. co. uk.
It has been conducting in-depth research on key benefits areas since 1997 has built up a highly regarding database of surveys which are available free here: Employee Benefits Research (http://www. employeebenefits. co. uk/research/). These include:
Salaries and perks for benefits experts 2007
Employee Benefits Fleet Research 2007
Employee Benefits/Towers Perrin Flexible Benefits Research 2007
Employee Benefits/Aegon Trustee Solutions Pensions Research 2006
Employee Benefits/HSA Healthcare Research 2006
What employees really want research 2006
Employee Benefits Financial Education Research 2006
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