We aren’t our jobs, and our jobs aren’t out lives. But let’s face it: the way human society has evolved, our jobs are as consequential to us and our happiness as our family lives, our personal interests, and our relation to the rest of the humanity. And deep at the heart of the essential bond between employee and worker in our current world are benefits, most importantly the kind that pay for our medical bills as we proceed through life. For many people, having a job is more than the difference between paying the bills and not paying them – it’s about being able to stay alive versus dying before their time, as stark as that sounds. When employers are the reason for our literal livelihood, that relationship needs to be consistently investigated and re-understood. And almost as important as benefits to the individual is employee retention to a company: it reflects the company’s continued health as truly as as check-up with a GP does for an individual worker. We asked employees of all stripes if benefits played a part in their staying with their current company as opposed to seeking greener pastures.
This info comes courtesy of the latest reading of an ongoing study by Comparably. Over 10,000 employees responded to the question.
Over half of all respondents, both men and women, answered “yes” when asked the question, “Do your company’s benefits play a part in you staying at that company?” Averages of responses from both genders landed within one percentage point of each other.
African-American respondents voted “yes” ever more frequently than overall men and women averages. Asian/Pacific Islander, Caucasian, and Hispanic/Latino votes were largely in line with the overall response of clearly more than 50% saying benefits played a role in keeping them put in their current jobs.
Employees in the Executive department were least dependent on their benefits when it came to choosing to stay at their companies. This may illustrate that, at that level, one’s investment in the company runs at a much deeper level than the more personal concerns usually countered by a benefit plan. In any case, one would be hard pressed to find a single instance of an Exec who left their company because another position at a different company offered better benefits. Other than the C-Suite, more department voted along the lines of the average of all employees, implying that those personal concerns are paramount to most workers. Employees from Admin and Communications actually voted significantly higher than the overall average.
However, female executives were far more ready to say that benefits played a part in their staying put than their male counterparts. Women in the C-suite answered yes almost 10% more often than male execs. A similar spread, with females much more focused on benefits than male workers, is seen in respondents from the IT departments.
As might be expected, the importance of a substantial benefits package increases with the age of the respondent. In general, a younger worker is naturally less concerned about paying a large medical bill than a worker in their 40s or 50s. It can be assumed that health benefits are the central issue here, as opposed to vacation days or even profit sharing.
While the story is clear when we look at age, respondents broken down by job experience aren’t as illuminating, except to illustrate again that the issue of benefits has a broad important to all workers. Employees who have worked at their careers for over ten years were just four percentage points more likely than entry-level workers to say that benefits played a part in their continued employment at their current company. Responses by department were otherwise generally in-line when broken up by gender, with women often but not always responding “yes” slightly more often than men.
Latest reading as of April 3.
