Post by SSG..The world of benefits...

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Dear All,

It is interesting to note from the posts of Sourabh Bhatia and Bijen Pattnaik that there are different challenges in front of established corporates and start-ups when it comes to benefit management. The posts really emphasize the need for an innovative approach to benefits management at start-ups where entrepreneurs like Sourabh Bhatia always need to look for an opportunity to surprise their employees by making them experience small moments of joy by capitalizing on the religious and cultural diversity of employees.

But such practices, do they help the companies build a cohesive teams which appreciate diverstity? and what extend such practices enable them to be more collaborative in their tasks and assignments?

Looking at Debajoyti's post we get the feeling that Laptops can motivate employees. The only practical theoretical problem we face is, "where do we place laptop in Maslow's hierarchy?" The prices of laptops have fallen so sharply over the years and the fact that they occupy so little space compared to a desktop, every organization would like to provide a laptop to save costs (read "space" is cost for organizations).

However, this post brings us an important question as why do companies have differential benefits treatement to different categories of employees?

Many companies realize that the cost of providing a bouquet of employee benefits is increasingly high for the organizations to the extent that it is one third of payroll costs for many organization.

Although employee benefits have gained currency in corporate world, there are several questions remain unanswered.

1. Do organizations give much importance to benefits management because of the cost of employee benefits have raised significantly?

2. In what way "employee benefits management" provide competitive advantage to organizations?

3. Do employees place "high value" on the benefits received or do they merely look at them as entitlements or just feel good factor as stated by our anonymous marketing executive from Forbes Marshall?

Posted by SSG at 6:44 PM Links to this post