What Are The 7 Employee Perks And Benefits That Every Designer Wants

Employers need to provide benefits for their employees if they want to continually attract the best of talents, retain these workers, and motivate them to operate at their best. These external perks are a great way to get them performing at optimum capacity as opposed to strict management and terrible work conditions that negatively affects their output. Giving employees what they want would create a fantastic workspace for everyone and when the business exceeds expectations, it increases their desire to work and creativity.

The employee benefits program is one of the most expensive endeavors that any employer has to invest money in. It’s not majorly about the cost but its impact on sustaining employee engagement in the organization. The kind of benefits you provide can either increase or lower your employee's chances of working for you. Investing in such a program is critical and is also an essential aspect of your firm's foundation.

If you’re an employer of labor, you must have thought deeply about the benefits of your employee and what you wanted it to be. A major question would be whether or not it is optimized enough to meet the needs of your employees.

Creating a plan of this nature is quite tasking and needs a lot of work to bring out the kind of result you want. As an employer, you need a properly-outlined benefit plan that takes into consideration your intentions, budget, and compensations to be granted to your employees.

Your plan should include clearly defined goals that are achievable and meaningful, should be within the organization’s budget, and be able to match your competitor’s plan. The process is stressful without doubt but it certainly would be beneficial to your plan if you knew some perks and benefits both you and your employee would want. Here are some of them below.

1. Flexible Schedules

Every day round the clock, people are constantly working but that doesn’t apply to every industry. If your organization is majorly dominated by creatives, you can’t afford to box them by instructing them to work within a specific period. They can work at any time of the day they feel comfortable. The most successful of them usually wake up very early or stay up late to tune down the noise. With flexible schedules, they can work when the office isn’t crowded and with fewer interruptions.

Creatives find it hard to follow or adhere to traditional workdays. Flexible hours of work allow your employees to work when they’re most energized and as such can be more productive. You can visit Zenefits.com to help you work around that scheduling. Organizations that grant their workers the opportunity to work at flexible hours see low absent rates. Recent research has shown that over 60% of employees weren’t absent from work because it was easy for them to handle personal needs without taking sick days or vacations.

It’s rare for employers to bend as far as letting their staff work in the dead of night, so employees who want flexible schedules freelance. To flow with the tide, companies are creating programs that compensate for performance over hours spent working.

2. Social Security Contribution and Health Insurance

Health insurance is one of the most common employee benefits that’s provided by employers. They are considered long-term benefits that employers with more than 50 staff must provide according to the Affordable Care Act.

Typically, medical insurance covers three major aspects; health, vision, and dental insurance. Health insurance further includes some other things such as a health savings account, health reimbursement account, or flexible spending account. Depending on the organization and their budget, they might decide to provide some or all of these options. You’d do well to explain each of them and their individual benefit.

Concerning the social security benefit, the IRS has mandated employers to hold back social security tax at a little under 6.2% from their employees which equates to the maximum wage base of $132,900. The moment it gets to the limit, social security would no longer be deducted.

3. Disability Insurance

A lot like health insurance, several employers give employees (disabled or not) the chance to opt for disability insurance. It is more like wage protection that shields both the worker and employer from unexpected occurrences that might hinder the employee from working after a certain period. Disability insurance can be short or long-term.

Short-term insurance basically covers injuries or incidents that can prevent the employee from working for a short time (few weeks to a couple of months). In a case where their time out would be longer than expected, they will have to expend their short-term disability option. They can only opt for their long-term insurance if the short-term option has been exhausted.

4. Free or Discounted Meals

Whether it’s free donuts or cake at brunch on certain weekdays or cake when a colleague is celebrating their birthday, food is one perk everyone would love and appreciate. Your organization can join the several companies who’ve been providing buffets, free/discount meals, and sometimes, gourmet dining. Free or discounted meals don’t just help employees to save money, it’s also a great way for designers to connect. They can easily interact with people whose workstations are on a different block and share ideas with people they wouldn’t normally meet.

They wouldn’t need to go far to get some food if they’re working from home so why not replicate that at work. By providing for their meals or making it free or inexpensive, mealtime can be a fun experience which is way easier than cooking at home.

5. Mental Health Care

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 25% of Americans are living with mental illness. Even though we all have mental health, knowing who’s really truly struggling can be tricky especially when it’s within a corporate environment. However, more companies are working towards providing mental support to help their employees stay afloat and rid the stigma attached to mental health.

Employers can base their effort on awareness/education and assessment. They can organize stress-reduction seminars handled by a mental health professional, provide tools that can examine the mental health of the workers, or even direct access to a psychologist.

Generally, designers and creatives are more likely to get overwhelmed mentally than in other roles most times because of pressure. Freelancing provides an alternative to get by without being employed. With remote work, people struggling with their mental health can cope without having to deal with high pressure at work or a toxic work environment.

Mental health plans at work encourage workers to reach out for help rather than keeping to themselves. Assuring them that they’re free to take time off for their recovery or if the pressure gets out of hand.

6. Training, Retreat, and Vacation

It’s normal for most companies to organize off-site lunches or vacation parties, but nothing beats an overnight retreat when it comes to team-building time. It’s a great opportunity to travel, network, experience different cultures, and learn new skills from authority figures in the industry.

If your company has the capacity to, why not take everyone to such retreats or conventions. It might be expensive no doubt but the aftermath is an unmatched motivation and productivity at work.

This is where employers have the upper hand over freelancers as they can’t get all-expense-paid trips to exotic places. The freelancer’s edge is that being self-employed makes it possible for them to work remotely from anywhere. Special training, retreats, or conventions enhance the creativity of designers and allow them to find new inspiration for their works.

7. Parental Leave

Working parents, especially newborns are usually a very stressed-out set of folks. Well, employers are starting to realize how their stress can affect productivity and results at work. This has caused some organizations to start compensating them with child care services at work and providing more days off from work so they can care for their kids and perform their parental responsibilities. Parental leave allows new parents to spend enough time with their baby(ies).

If you’re an employer and have workers who are expecting, ensure you give them the support they need. This is why some decide to switch to freelancing after their babies are born.
Work-from-home parents don’t need to worry about spending $12,000 annually in childcare costs that are more expensive than the college cost of the child. Plus they still get to hold the ‘employed’ title and enjoy their child’s formative years.

Don’t allow your company to be among those that place no value on the importance of raising children. They are at a high risk of losing working parents as opposed to organizations that cherish the families of their workers.

Employers need to stop thinking of employee benefits as a compulsory requirement but a tool to attract and retain the best of the best. If you can give them what they need and create a workplace where respect and caring for others is a thing, you’d have created an environment where they can thrive and produce more results for the company.