Help retain employees by following these financial and other benefits suggested by The Stakeholder Advisory Group.
Direct financial benefit
- Retirement plan – offer a retirement plan, or work with another agency to offer one jointly to share cost
- Agency pay for continuing education, training, in-service trainings
- Agency offers free CEUs in-house
- Agency creates an Employee Assistance Program
- Agency offers tuition reimbursement for courses toward professional development – if it is part of an arrangement with a college which provides credit for work experience- the courses could be free or of reduced charge to both the agency and the worker
- All employees on salary (versus fee for service) – this allows employees to have a more stable continuous income
- Pay raises at a fixed percent per year or in fixed increments – this allows some predictability for employees
- Additional fee for service opportunities to raise income – for those employees who can work extra hours, this can raise their pay and increase the income for the agency
- Productivity incentives (pay and/or vacation time) – for completing paperwork correctly, for seeing more clients, for billable hours – allowing the employee to share in the financial benefit to the agency can help the worker financially and give them an incentive to help the agency
- Merit and/or longevity bonuses (pay and/or vacation time)
- All employees get benefits
- Conduct survey of local agencies to know whether benefits are competitive or not
- Uniform salary ranges for job grade – if salary ranges are not fairly used for the same pay grade, this can be a dissatisfier for employees
- Pay for training and/or pay salary for time at training (no loss of vacation time or pay) - see Phoenix House as a Massachusetts example.
- Flexible implementation of benefits (tailor to individual needs)
- Insurance plan where employees pay deductible only
- Join with another organization or trade association to negotiate benefits options
- Have a policy of paying a small percentage more than local competitors (such as 3%) – the amount may not be large, depending on the position and environment, but the policy can be attractive.
Indirect financial benefit
- Free parking
- Workout time
- Generous leave time
- Use of organization's laptop, cell phone
- Auto deposit payroll
- Borrow against future income if employee in dire straits