Employers seeking ways besides financial compensation to reward their employees find that work/life programs enhance efforts to attract and retain top talent. While many business owners have believed this for years, it was mainly based on anecdotal evidence.
But a survey of performance-based work/life programs earlier this year by the American Compensation Association confirmed those beliefs, indicating that programs such as family care, flex time, financial, wellness and career counseling are highly valued by employees. More importantly for employers, they are low cost, valued-added alternatives to expensive financial-based rewards.
The survey, which elicited responses from 1,256 employers nationwide, revealed the following:
- 18 percent use some work/life programs to reward employee performance.
- 43 percent do not use work/life programs, but say they will in the future.
- 24 percent of those that use work/life programs link those programs to improvements in employee satisfaction in the workplace.
- 48 percent use nonmonetary compensation to reward performance. Of this group, 41 percent plan to add work/life programs to their compensation packages.
