For most of us, jobs aren’t just about a reliable paycheck anymore. Increasingly, compensation outside of base salary is what keeps us with our jobs whether or not we feel passionate about the work otherwise. Our jobs pay for our medical bills, feed us, offer daycare for our children – some even give workers time off when their dog has puppies. A modern company wants to be as irreplaceable to their employees as their employees hopefully are to them. The movement is towards the familial, and away from the impersonal. We asked employees, “Do your company’s benefits play a part in staying at that company?”
The information comes from the latest reading of an ongoing study by Comparably.
Women and men largely agree here. Slightly more females than males say that their benefits play a role in keeping them put at their current company. Surely once children or age-related decline enter the picture, gender is less of a factor.
African-Americans employees were the most enthusiastic when it came to identifying their benefits as key to their continued allegiance to their current workplace. That neared two-thirds positive on the question. Asian/Pacific Islanders, Caucasians, and Hispanic/Latinos were more closely in line with overall men and women as seen above. Least supportive of the idea were respondents from the “other” designation, which collects reactions from employees not wishing to identify with any single ethnicity.
Unlike what we see responses to other employee questions, here the executives were the least likely to respond in the affirmative to the benefits question. Most often, execs are the most positive when it comes to a question relating to workplace policy, but here it may be that the paycheck and the title may be the things keeping a particular exec with a particular company. Most enthusiastic were employees from Communications and Admin, both voting “yes” well above averages for all employees.
With age, reliance on medical benefits increases, whether it has to do with maternity/paternity issues or with age-related health issues. Positive responses to the benefits question start around the 50% mark for Gen Z employees, and then increase unfailingly with each age bracket.
We don’t see this same trend when responses are broken up by years of work experience of the respondent. The trend is still generally upward, but the difference in responses between entry level employees (54% “yes”) and employees who have worked for over 10 years (58% “yes”) is less than we might expect considering the sharp and persistent rise seen as age increases. 
Latest reading as of Jan 24.
