Employee benefits are an essential component of a complete compensation package. This is because they provide a safety net for workers and their families if something goes wrong.
Regardless of size or industry, employee benefits policies should exist to safeguard their staff from unforeseen events and help them succeed at work.
But what employee benefits should you provide?
This article will cover some of the most crucial employee benefits policies you need to know as an employer in Singapore and inspire you with dozens of supplementary benefits.
Employee benefits are, simply put, compensation that employers offer their workers to reward them. This includes bonuses and allowances in addition to non-cash perks like insurance or leave.
The Employment Act is Singapore's main labour law. It provides basic terms and conditions at work for workers covered by the act.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it's crucial to know who is covered by the Employment Act.
Workers who are covered by the Employment Act are:
The Employment Act does not cover some workers. In this case, their work T&Cs should follow their employment contract. They are:
Here comes the interesting part. Part IV of the Employment Act has unique coverage.
(In case you're wondering, Part IV is where it contains hours of work, overtime pay, and rest days.)
Not every employee is covered by Part IV. The eligible employees are:
Now that we've understood who is covered and who's not, let's dive into the mandatory and supplementary benefits.
Mandatory Benefits: Leave
Mandatory Benefits: Part IV of the Employment Act
Medical Reimbursements During Sick Leave
Supplementary Benefits:
This is one of the most challenging puzzles to solve when planning for your company.
While it's easy to think of solutions from your perspective, try something different this time.
Create conversations with your employees and genuinely ask them about what they think about your employee benefits package.
Doing this builds trust and loyalty among your employees and fully utilises your budget on benefits that matter.
The good news is, we have created a process to guide you on finding out the most important benefits for your employees. It includes steps to plan, survey, questions to ask, and more.
Finding out the most important benefits for your employees is going to take time and effort. But the prize at the end of the tunnel is extremely rewarding.
Companies that have done this are enjoying higher productivity, increased bottom line, stronger trust and loyalty, better engagement, lower turnover rate and more.
Well, if you're still not sure whether you want to commit to 'finding out the most important benefits' process or not, you can look at this survey that has listed the top employee benefits that attract and retain talents in Singapore.
Mandatory benefits provide the minimum, but they're not the standard. It's up to you to set the benchmark for other employers in your industry.
To help you, we've created many resources to walk you through the entire process of using benefits to up your game. Here are some of our favourite ones:
Mednefits helps businesses take care of their employees with its automated, affordable, and accessible employee benefits platform.
Request to join Mednefits for free to help process and track claims in real-time, while controlling costs.