GREAT 147 IDEA: Tailor Benefits to Employees' Needs

One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to offering employee benefits. Every company has a distinct group of employees with varying personal lives, professional goals, and priorities.

While big companies may offer the same insurance benefits and options to everyone, small companies have an advantage in being able to tailor benefits to their employees' specific needs. In many cases, your employees are covered by their spouses' insurance benefits, and you won't need to duplicate coverage.

If your business is really small, consider giving each employee a fixed amount of money each month that they can use to buy a particular benefit. A single person may want dental insurance, but a young mother might prefer that you help pay for child care. Another employee might want legal insurance if they have legal problems relating to property or investments.

There is a wide array of insurance benefits and programs available to employers. One option is to hire a benefits consultant to help create a “cafeteria” program of benefits to fit your employees' needs. You'll also need professional help to figure out whether to pay for employee benefits with pretax or after-tax dollars.

Basically, as long as you spend the same amount of money on each employee, you'll stay out of trouble. Even $150 a month can help pay for a single person's coverage in a health maintenance organization (HMO) or other group insurance program.

Remember, some of the best benefits you can offer employees may not cost you much money at all. Flexible scheduling is one of the ways small business owners can retain good workers and boost morale. It doesn't cost you any more money to stagger work hours to fit your employees' needs.

If a valuable employee needs to be home when their children get home from school, why not let them work from 6 AM to 2 PM? This works especially well if you are a West Coast company dealing with East Coast clients. Job sharing is another perk to consider. Often, two working mothers or fathers will ask to split a job and split the benefits that go with that job.