Survey of Businesses Shows Health Insurance Ranks as Most Important Job Benefit

Retirement Plans and Paid Time Off Round Out the Top 3 In Survey Of
Employers, HR/Hiring Managers, and Employees

Express Employment Professionals recently released the results of a survey about the most important benefits offered by employers. Responses came from nearly 1,500 employers, HR/hiring managers and employees surveyed in February 2014 as part of the ongoing America Employed campaign.

When asked to name the “top three most important benefits offered by employers” other than wages, respondents most often chose health care plans (84.0%), retirement plans (66.1%), and paid time off (61.9%). Another 46.4 percent said vacation. Only 16 percent of respondents did not choose health care.

Among non-management employees, health care was still the most commonly named benefit (82.6%), though they considered retirement plans more important (72.8%) than did employers or HR/hiring professionals by 19.33 percent and 4.7 percent respectively.

Employers were the least likely to name health care; 73.2 percent put it in the top three.

Employees were the most likely to name education assistance as an important benefit (15.8%). Only 7.3 percent of HR/hiring managers and 4.0 percent of employers named education assistance.

“It may be hard and it certainly is expensive, but employer provided health insurance remains an important part of an employer-employee relationship. Employers want to provide it and employees have come to expect it,” said Bob Funk, CEO of Express, and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“This survey also reminds us that wages and healthcare are not the only benefits that employers provide. There are a range of other benefits that employees value, and when employers have to spend more in one area—whether it’s wages or health care or retirement—it’s hard for them to spend in other areas.”