16 January, 2020
Every firm wants to stand out in their industry and be seen favorably by clients and customers. In this race, some may invest a lot into marketing and some into providing additional facilities for employees to perform better. They are both excellent strategies but not more than what is required should be spent on them. As a business owner, you need to see that your resources are spent responsibly in conducting it.
So when it comes to acquiring favorable benefits for employees to work well in your office environment, you need to keep mind to not overspending on them. Yes, it’s a good practice to have in place an eyecatching list of perks that they can use like health benefits or life insurance, but you need to see if you can actually afford it or not. Especially if your business is a startup or a small scale. For this reason, the following are the benefits that you are required to provide to your employees and those that you are not.
Administer Plans that Are Safe and Reliable
To provide for your employees, you first need to provide for yourself and what you acquire should be of good quality and reliable. Meaning that you should get plans for the required employee benefits from places that have a reputation and offer additional services. They must be secure for you to have a good return on your money. When shopping for plans to provide your employees with wth perks, you need to check their reliability and see if other businesses have gained benefits from them. You can ask around to your other business owner colleagues on where to get these plans. See if they’re registered and administer their costs and compare them with your budget before purchasing any policy.
Social security
Social security and medicare are funds that are set by the government to supply to the workers of any firm in the US. And you are required by the law to provide your employees with these funds. There is a social security identification system with which it can be known if an employee has been supplied with the right to hold a social security account and also medicare. The firm has to make specific arrangments to have its employees registered into the tax systems of FICA a federal payroll system. You have to make sure that you have the needed policies in place to get your employees enrolled in the process of obtaining social security after retirement.
For this, you can arrange tax forms for each hiring employee and prepare a W-2 form to administer them into it to have them in the process. With social security, you will have to deduct 6.2% of the gross payroll and for medicare 1.45 of the total compensation to place in each employee account with the government. This will be deducted from an employees’ salary to send to the government accounts of social security for the benefit of the workers.
Medical Insurance
If you’re a business owner of a big company that has at least 50 full time working employees or more, you need to provide them medical insurance. The insurance must meet the standards set by the government to provide for the workers. If a company supplies a low-quality plan or doesn't do so at all, it could face severe penalties. These penalties are gigantic and paying for them can have your business at risk. The government seeks to deduct the resulting amount when its time for the next tax deduction. Every large corporation is to supply good-quality medical insurance for each of its full-time employee and their family or face penalties under the ACA.
Unemployment Insurance
Among the other benefits for employees in a workplace, they are also entitled to acquiring unemployment insurance in case that they are terminated from the job unintentionally or intentionally but the purpose is not their fault or lack of skill. The government specifies every firm in the US to provide its employees with unemployment insurance in a situation such as a layoff when a company terminates a few employees to adhere to specific circumstances. The amount of the coverage may be lesser than that of an employee's salary. It differs in different states so know what your government states about the amount to give your employee that rightful compensation.
Worker’s Compensation
Despite all your security measures, an employee can get hurt in your firm or the workload on them can have them develop a condition. If the injury or disease is severe it needs medical attention or working anymore is not a possibility for them, then they will be subjected to acquiring worker’s comp. So your firm should hold a system of supplying your employees with reimbursement for as long as they need to recover. An employee can also become partially or wholly paralyzed while being present in your firm; for them you’ll have to compensate an amount to supply them or arrange a retaining for them to be able to work in their condition. Or provide them a job opportunity that they can comply with. The chances are that an employee can sue your firm for not getting the right amount they were vowed to or wrongfully wan to gain more from their workers’ comp than they are entitled to. For this matter, you can hire a proficient Orange County Workers Comp Lawyer that can defend you in case an employee is to take action.
Disability Insurance
This is a benefit that is implemented in not many states. It is to provide employers with benefits when they become disabled and aren’t able to work anymore due to it. They are restrained at home with no means of spending money. A company has to supply this insurance to such a worker when he/she is hurt outside the company for them to receive cash to support themselves until they go back to work. The states of California, NY, New Jersey, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico mandate a company to supply this benefit to employers in disability.
Family Medical Leave
Employees are subjected to get paid holidays from a firm in the US of 12 weeks in a year if they experience some medical emergency in the form of a child’s birth or adoption. It could also be due to the employee’s or a family member’s health care adhering to a severe condition. You are responsible for maintaining a system where your employers can take leaves to due family medical issues for as many as 12 weeks that are also paid by your firm if you have a capacity of 50 full-time workers or more. Not providing it can have you face legal consequences on behalf of your firm. The government states that an employee’s job and benefits will remain intact with them when they’re on such a leave.
Time Off
The government in each state is clear for businesses in providing time off for those who have the right to vote or need to carry out a jury liability. An employee who wants to complete their task of putting in their respective votes can get time off from your frim. Moreover, if an employee transmits to completing a mission of the military, they can take time off from the company. The employee can then join the same company and regularly work on his/her return.
Other Benefits
A company is required to send their employees on paid leaves on occasions like Christmas, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and so on. Your firm should also allow workers to take holidays for any emergency that are aside from the paid holidays.
Benefits That are Not Required
There are small scale companies that can't supply more than the required benefits should stick to them to prevent themselves from overspending. But for big-budget companies, the task of providing additional benefits is not a challenging one. They can do it to ensure employee satisfaction and attract better employees through their perks.
You can implement perks like life insurance to your hard-working employees for them to show better results and work harder for the betterment of your firm. Plus your company’s image will also be maintained and you will be looked up as a notable business holder. The additional benefits that you can administer in your firm looking out for your budget can be the following:
Retirement Plans
A retirement plan is like an investment for the future, and providing it to employees will make them happy to work at your firm. You could introduce retirement plans like the Individual Retirement Account (IRA) that lets employees invest in an amount from their salary without the deduction of tax.
Paid Vacations
Every employee’s dream is to get paid while enjoying a holiday. You can offer this advantage to your workers to make them content.
Health Campaigns
More health benefits can be administered into your expertise to support your employees and make them stay. These could be dental and vision insurance. You can provide for half the bill of a dental or a vison checkup for your employee depending on the cost of the procedure.
I'm Harry Wilson, a senior digital marketing consultant at Globex Outreach. Writing is my part-time hobby because I get to share my experience with the world. Professionally, I help map out a flawless digital marketing plan for the clients at my firm.
