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Attract and Retain the Best: Building a Modern Benefits Package for 2025

Written by Stephanie Baxmann | Feb 18, 2025 3:00:00 PM

Attracting the best modern employees requires employers to go beyond salary. Constructing top-tier benefits packages will play a significant role in enticing the talent you want and retaining them once they have joined your organization.

Expectations have been slowly shifting within the marketplace. Employees appreciate packages that provide more holistic features that help them financially, mentally, and physically, in addition to the standard healthcare and salary.

Essential Components of a Modern Benefits Package: Employee Benefits Trends 2025

While all candidates will want to know the salary of the position you offer and expect to see healthcare as a part of your benefits package, there are also four key areas where they want to see benefits. Understanding these areas and knowing what your company can offer in these areas is key to creating an exciting offer.

Hybrid/Remote/Flexible Working Schedules

Since the pandemic, people have realized how much work they can do from home, and they appreciate the work-life balance that comes with the ability to work at least some of the time from the comfort and convenience of their own computer.

Many people also appreciate flexible working hours and how these schedules can improve their quality of life by making it easier to schedule appointments, participate in family life, and pursue hobbies. Remote work benefits have become an important component for countless employees. This type of flexibility is highly sought after and will increase retention and job satisfaction.

Mental Health Support

The entire modern culture has been increasingly aware of the importance of mental health support. This reflection and shift has made its way into top benefit packages as well. Businesses have begun to include support features such as access to counselors, options to take mental health days, and in-office benefits such as meditation and yoga, particularly during high-stress times of the year.

Retirement Savings Plans With Matching Contributions

People also recognize the importance of staying on top of their retirement savings. Helping your employees plan for their futures with benefits like matching retirement contributions provides excellent financial support. People appreciate the financial security this offers, which will increase its appeal to prospective employees.

Student Loan Repayment Assistance Or Tuition Reimbursement

Higher education prices have increased astronomically, placing considerable stress on people as they try to earn their degrees. Acknowledging this concern and helping your employees manage it through student loan repayment assistance or tuition reimbursement demonstrates you care about your employee’s long-term goals and want to help them continue to grow.

Additional Benefits to Consider as Top Talent Attract Strategies

While the four features described above should play the most significant roles in the benefit packages you construct, consider also the following type of bonus features you might want to include.

  • Wellness stipends for gym memberships or fitness classes. People appreciate the perk, and it encourages a healthy lifestyle among your employees.

  • Paid parental leave that extends beyond the industry standard. While laws dictate that you have to offer some time off after parents welcome a child, going beyond the requirements to offer extra time or better benefits during this time of transition will be much appreciated and can differentiate you as an employer.

  • Offering childcare support or independent care flexible spending accounts. Recognizing that many employees will have expenses related to care, you can offer these benefits to offer additional support to working parents.

Implementing Your Benefits Package

As you prepare to upgrade the benefits package you offer your employees, work through the process carefully to make sure you capture the benefits that matter most to your workers. Moving through this process properly will increase your retention rates and help improve overall job satisfaction.

  1. Assess your employee needs and expectations. Look at the industry standards for packages to know what your competitors offer. Speak with your employees to learn more about the benefits that matter the most to them. The more insight you can gain from your employees' desires, the easier it will be to construct a benefits package that will hit the most important points in the eyes of your employees.

  2. Once you construct your benefits package, draft clear, thorough communication that will get the information to your workers and your prospective employees. You can do this in a few different ways. Emails that announce the changes and that specifically highlight what features are changing are a great place to start. You might also hold training and informational sessions so that people can ask any questions they have. As the changes come into effect, make sure that any employee resources used to look up benefit information are correctly updated as well.

  3. Finally, keep a close eye on how your employees respond to your new benefits structure. You might use surveys that let you ask for feedback on different features. You can also track how often people use features like meditation space, gym passes, or flexible scheduling. Data on how your employee retention compares after implementation to before the new structure can also help you track people’s appreciation.

Conclusion: Constructing Comprehensive Benefits Packages

A well-constructed benefits package in the modern workplace can make all the difference when it comes to attracting top talent and then retaining them long-term. Quality benefits let employees know you appreciate them.

However, modern employees have some new and different expectations about the types of benefits they would like to see included. Consider the suggestions and the types of offerings described above to see how you can incorporate some of these key features into your internal packages.

If you are preparing to construct a new benefits package for your business, contact our HR experts today for a consultation on building or revising a benefits package. We can help you build the package that will fit your business and your employees best.