Employers are being urged to do more to promote the employee benefits that they offer to staff as part of the recruitment process.
The Office for National Statistics estimates there were 547,000 job vacancies in the UK Sep-Nov 2020, and with January being a prime time for recruitment, this is particularly relevant.
Research carried out for GRiD, the group risk trade body, shows that “all too often” employers fail to promote the perks after an offer has been accepted.
Just 22% of organisations promote employee benefits prior to recruitment – for example, in job advertisements – and only a quarter (25%) include any mention of employee benefits before day one of employment, such as in an offer letter.
The poll of 500 HR decision makers and 1,165 UK employees also found that 29% of employers think that ‘benefits are as important as salary’ in helping to recruit and retain employees and 33% believe potential staff are as interested in the wider benefits as they are in the salary’.
This is backed up by employees themselves, with 32% saying that employee benefits are as equally important to them as salary.
Katharine Moxham, spokesperson for Group Risk Development (GRiD) said: “It is completely nonsensical that most employers fail to promote their employee benefits as part of the recruitment process. Benefits already in place within the organisation will be utilised by existing staff, and ostensibly communicated to new recruits should they sign on the dotted line, so it really is a missed opportunity not to make the most of them to attract the best possible talent.”
