60% of European companies offer their employees a certain level of choice of benefits and two-thirds of the remaining 40% are considering the same. They do it in an effort to remain competitive in the market (58%), increase employee engagement (54%) and retain key talent (54%). These are findings of a research by Mercer called Mercer European Survey on Employee Choice Benefits in 2011 involving more than 500 companies from 12 European countries.
It turned out that, regardless of the current economic conditions, companies preserved the current schemes of choosing employee benefits or even created new ones. 62% of the surveyed companies wanted to further develop their flexible benefit programs. When asked what obstacles prevent them from implementing these programs, most of the respondents reported complicated administration and high cost (both 39%). However, it is encouraging that it was less than in 2009. At that time, administration disouraged 58% and costs 53% of respondents.
Employers are mostly satisfied with their programs for employee benefits choice. 75% of them even stated "very positive" response from employees. 36% of companies have managed to save money through the introduction of flexible benefits, only 4% reported significantly higher costs.
A third of multinational companies that do not have a global strategy for flexible benefits yet, is seriously considering its introduction. The number of those who think that they are not ready for a global strategy fell from 38% in 2009 to 20% in 2011.
Respondent demographics
516 companies from 12 European countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Great Britain) participated in the sudy. All sizes of companies were represented (25% of companies to 250 employees in a home country, 58% of companies with 251-5,000 employees and 17% of companies with more than 5,000 employees). Most of the surveyed companies were multinational organizations. 40% of respondents were manufacturing companies, 24% were companies providing services and 16% were financial organizations.
-kk-