QOTW: Surveying Employees

We have heard lately from some members that they are starting to survey employees about the organization’s offered benefits and we wondered how prevalent it is to ask employees about what benefits they want and/or their satisfaction with current benefits. More than forty percent (42.5 percent) stated they currently survey employees about desired benefits, with lots of comments on why are or why not they do, and how they determine what benefits to offer.

Survey Employees

• Benchmarking and industry trend reports
• Bi-annual employee survey, benchmarking, budget.
• Consultant evaluation, assessment of ROI and utilization, EHIR, innovation research, benefits inventory and employee survey/feedback,
• cost is the main factor, what is popular or becoming popular (expected is probably a better word), feedback from employees
• Decision are made by our leadership.  If enough employees ask about a specific product leadership may consider adding it to our offerings.
• Decisions are made based on a combination of total rewards goals and plans, employee requests, and    benefits budget.
• discussion at fiduciary meetings also
• Even with doing a survey, it is so generic that it doesn't give us a roadmap for what employee's want.  We do the best we can by putting on our employee hat and asking if this would be good for the employees.  Many times it is a no brainer.  Trying to meet employees where they are - not all will find value but as long as some find value.
• Every 18 months our company does an employee engagement survey.  The survey includes questions on employee benefits and our Profit Sharing Retirement Plan (combination plan - 401k and profit sharing) and compare our benefits with our peers in our industry.
• Financial sustainability of plan and company, what competitors are offering
• If a benefit comes up in the various surveys that are done we look at cost to us as well as how many employees would possibly benefit from the addition. We also try to find out what our competitors are doing.
• Is it beneficial to all employees and also affordable for the company.  As a fiduciary, are the fees reasonable?
• Retirees are offered the same choices as active employees up to age 65.
• This will be the first year we performed a benefit survey in May and a strong percentage were happy with our retirement plan.
• We are reviewing trends among other retirement plans.
• we ask employees; we talk with our employee resource groups; we work with our consultants - and then we figure out what we can afford to offer
• We conduct an annual engagement survey where we have employees rate benefits and provide open feedback about current and possible benefits. We also conduct exit interviews where we inquire about the benefits offered to the employee at the new company. Additionally, we participate in quite a few benefit surveys to gauge where we fall in comparison and to determine if there are new benefits in the market. As well, we work with a 401k brokerage firm to evaluate our 401k plan twice a year to ensure our plan is meeting employee demands.
• We consider market data, as well as employee feedback and our overall Plan / business goals
• We do so but have not in a while.  We plan to do so in 2023 to assess what's important to our current employees.
• We have a population who is 90% female and many have medical and dental coverage under a spouses program, thereby not taking advantage of the agency's full payment for base coverage. We'll revamp the benefit offerings over the next year to better fit the needs of our population and to take advantage of Secure 2.0.
• We looked at our entire benefits and made some small revisions based on the number of requests from employees. We also added some benefits that are more specialized - paid parental leave, a little more PTO, increased bereavement, etc. Basically, low user items that won't cost too much but are a great benefit for a few employees as they need it.
• We measure satisfaction and do not asked for additional benefit consideration
• We only do this indirectly via the Great Place to Work survey. There are questions about benefits on there.
• We survey and also discuss with investment committee when changes are needed.
• We survey general benefits satisfaction but not specific to retirement plans. We do not ask what benefits they want as they do not know what is possible and therefore generally just ask for more of what we already provide. We do get requests in our open comments portion of our annual employee survey.
• We work with our broker to find other benefit offerings that might be a good add to our offerings.  Then, we survey employees to determine their level of interest.  We just did this for pet benefits and had a good response so we are going to make this available to employees in 2023.

Do Not Survey Employees

• Benchmarking of other plan sponsors; use of benefits survey results - specific to our industry when possible.
• Benchmarking studies and value added benefits
• Benefits offered by the firm are of high quality and meet or exceed industry standards.
• Best practices
• Budget, retirement plan committee feedback from informally gathered employee comments, and industry comparisons.
• Business plan
• By what is asked for during recruitment, and low turnover due to satisfaction with benefit programs.  Strong 401k match.
• Committee Meeting
• Competitors, Benchmarks
• Currently, mainly cost factors. Not looking to make changes right now.
• Currently, we use what we think they want and the cost.  Our organization is moving to include surveys in many of our employee-impacted decisions.
• Exit interviews with departing employees and conversations with incoming employees assure us that the benefits package is above average and highly competitive.
• It is a management decision primarily based on cost.
• Look at what our industry does
• Market data
• Our retirement system is a State agency. The State makes those decisions.
• Peer benchmarking, costs
• Sr management team, suggestions from brokers we evaluate our participation rates in the different services provided.
• Strong retirement plan in place that is good for recruiting and retention - no one complains about the plan - it is one of the best matches in the industry.
• The State Legislature determines the benefits offered based on a number of economic and political factors.
• We are a very small company.  We offer Health and FSA benefits, as well as provided STD, LTD, 401K and Life insurance.  In the past - over 10 years ago, we asked about other benefits - like dental, AFLAC, etc.  and had noone interested.  So, we don't ask anymore.
• We are considering surveying employees but are concerned about survey fatigue because of all the other surveys that have been sent out. We have a robust offering and consider other options based on third party survey data about our industry and on feedback received informally from employees. That said, our benefits budget has not increased, so our ability to expand is limited.
• We benchmark ourselves against other businesses in our area, and in our industry. Our benefits compare favorably to others in those categories. Additional benefit offering decisions are made by our owners, and factor in the company's budget and profitability.
• We do not survey, but make determinations based on general feedback from employees and review by the 401k committee.
• We don't do a formal survey but do communicate with employees and get feedback.
• We factor in the benefit package of our competitors.
• We look to our employee engagement survey to see if there are any theme related to benefits.  It also has to fit into our budget when adjusting benefits.
• We offer a 3% match (vested 100%) and 7.5% profit sharing (Cliff vesting 3 years).  We check what our peers are doing for their employees.
• We offer a very robust benefit program - we don't poll our employees, but we do take into consideration any requests we receive
• We use the "keep it simple" strategy. Cover all the basics. You can go down a rabbit hole of having too many options resulting in employees wondering where their net pay went.
• We utilize a committee of different department representatives, different backgrounds and perspectives.
• Yes.  We review benefits and the retirement plan to ensure we are getting good results for our employees.  We use outside vendors to help guide us in those decisions.