Trying to create a compensation plan that works for every individual on your team is a significant challenge. It's common for companies to simply consult industry standards or utilize benchmarking tools to determine what perks and incentives to offer. The goal is always to attract new talent and, just as important, keep the team they already have in place.
However, the most straightforward path to ensuring your benefits provide real value is to ask your people what they actually want. Getting input straight from employees can be just what you need to put together a benefits portfolio that actually works, and it should be what a good majority of these types of decisions are based on.
Why Employee Feedback Matters When Creating Benefits Packages
Depending on your company's size, you're probably not going to make every single person happy with one benefits package. That's just reality. But the only way to ensure the money you're spending is actually making an impact is to gather their opinions. Taking this first step benefits your business in a few different ways and allows you to:
- Gain helpful insights directly from employees - When you get honest feedback directly from your employees, you get a much clearer, more practical picture of what they need right now and what they may need in the future. This lets you build out your offerings in a way that’s actually relevant to them.
- Optimize your investment spending - The last thing you want is to waste budget on benefits that nobody even uses. Asking your team which perks they actually care about helps you cut a lot of that waste and get a much better ROI from your benefits budget.
- Employees feel heard and valued during the process - Asking for feedback isn't just about collecting data to build a better package. The simple act of “asking” shows your team that you respect their opinion and are serious about making decisions that reflect their priorities. This goes a long way in building trust, which is a critical piece when building a supportive and positive work environment.
The Most Effective Ways to Gather Employee Feedback
If you want to get a real handle on what your team wants from their total compensation, you need to give them a few different ways to share their thoughts.
Here are a few illustrations of effective feedback mechanisms:
Company Pulse Surveys
Many companies use surveys as a go-to strategy for gaining a higher-level understanding of how employees feel about various issues. These quick "pulse checks" are also great for gathering feedback on benefits packages, helping to make sure your business decisions line up with what your people actually need.
Doing these check-ins regularly during the year has the added benefit of giving staff a way to share concerns anonymously, which usually helps to gather more honest opinions from everyone.
Focus Groups
Sometimes, hearing teams’ views face-to-face and through organized meetings can be really helpful. This method lets you dig deeper and find out why certain types of coverage are more appealing than others.
Setting up a dedicated focus group or a roundtable just to talk about the benefits plan can open up really productive conversations between employees and leadership. In addition, this can be a more visible way for the company to show it's committed to its people and their changing needs.
Having Regular One-on-One Meetings
Really valuable feedback on benefits offerings can also come from regular one-on-ones with managers and exit interviews conducted by HR teams. Because these meetings are more private, employees are often much more comfortable opening up about their real opinions and experiences.
Exit interviews are particularly a good opportunity for this. People on their way out are often at their most honest. They feel freer to be direct about their view of the company - good and bad - and this can uncover some important information on how you could improve your entire compensation strategy.
How to Turn Employee Feedback Into Benefits Strategy Improvements
Once you've put in the work to collect all those employee opinions, the next job is to turn that raw data into an actionable strategy for improving your compensation packages and associated perks. Here’s a good way to approach this:
Gather All Data and Analyze It
With all the responses in hand, start digging through the information to find patterns. Look to see if you’re finding the same comments show up from different people or departments.
If you find that a large chunk of your team is providing similar feedback about certain benefits or requesting the same new ones, that's a strong indication that you may need to consider making a change in that area.
Prioritize Feedback With the Largest Impact
After you've collected a list of potential changes, you should prioritize them. Rank them based on their costs and how realistic they are to actually implement.
. You should then weigh the value that each change would bring to your staff against whether the company can actually afford to maintain these benefits in the long term.
Roll Out Changes Gradually
If you're planning to make a lot of changes to your benefits packages, it's usually smart to test the waters first. Instead of releasing a massive, company-wide update all at once, try running a pilot program with just a few small adjustments at first.
This approach lets you see how employees respond and helps make sure the final change is something the majority respond well to, not something that ends up frustrating more people than it helps.
Leverage Your Employee Feedback for Better Decision-Making
When you make a genuine effort to solicit and then act on your employees' opinions about compensation, you're actively enhancing your benefits packages while also conveying a clear message that their input matters.
This approach fosters stronger team morale, which, in turn, naturally reduces your turnover rate, ultimately putting the entire organization in a much better position for steady, long-term growth.
Contributed by
Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm.
