Employees Aren't As Satisfied With Their Benefits As Employers Think They Are

This recent piece from Fortune runs through some of the most important findings within Aflac’s latest Industry Resources report, which we have summarized, organized, and/or expanded upon below.

Employers Overestimate Employee Benefit Satisfaction

There is nearly a 20 percent gap between the 78% of employers who claim that their employees are highly satisfied with their benefits package, compared to the 59% of employees who report high levels of satisfaction with those offerings. 

In fact, this perception gap can often be directly traced to retention issues given the frequency with which less-than-satisfied employees seek outside opportunities in pursuit of benefits that better meet their expectations. 

One of the primary reasons that employers and employees aren’t always on the same wavelength when it comes to designing and appreciating the available benefits is that each side has differing priorities. Employers many times view benefits offerings first through an ROI-oriented lens that limits the range of options employers may consider in the first place and shapes their ability to see the ultimate offerings from an employee perspective, as a result.

Whether despite or because of the fact that employees are less satisfied with their benefits than their employees believe them to be, more than half of responding employees (53%) expressed a willingness to take a job that has lower pay but better benefits.

Why Do Employers Overestimate Employee Satisfaction With Employee Benefits?

• Employee Benefits Understanding

One of the main issues creating the gap between employer and employee perception of benefits packages is the level of employee understanding about how best to optimize the benefits available to them in light of their own specific needs, which employers’ similarly overestimate. 

While nearly 8 out of 10 employers (79%) believe their employees have a sufficient understanding of the costs involved with various benefits offerings, which in turn is a proxy for the worth and value of those benefits, less than half of employees (48%) claim they have the required knowledge to navigate the benefits offerings and systems well.

By better educating and training employees on how to maximize the value of their benefits, employers can make significant inroads in closing that understanding gap.

• Employee Benefits Trust

Further, the rapidly falling proportion of employees who believe that their employers genuinely care about their well-being likely drives the growing benefits appreciation gap, as well, assuming that employees who are skeptical of the existence of an employer/employee relationship beyond transactional might also be skeptical of employer intentions and priorities with regard to benefit package design. 

With less than half of responding employees (48%) currently believing that their employer cares about their well-being, relative to the 56% and 59% of respondents who claimed such a belief in 2022 and 2021 respectively, clearly there is some work to be done in order to bridge this confidence gap, as well.

You can read more about these topics here.