Employee satisfaction is increasingly depending on whether employers offer benefits as part of employee remuneration. If a company offers a free choice of benefits, it usually it increases the chances of high staff loyalty. These are the conclusions of the 10th Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends, which is every year undertaken by Metlife.
Ony 5 years ago language education was almost a standard part of remuneration packages of employees with secondary or higher education in the Czech Republic. Then came the economic crisis and companies began to save costs. It was, however, still necessary to work on maintaining the competitiveness of human capital and foster employee motivation. Language education has gradually moved into benefits where employees are at least partly involved with the costs. The economic crisis is over, but some changes remain. Language training across companies is, with rare exceptions, the past at Czech employers.
According to a survey by Robert Half International, the most valuable benefit is having time off, for example, an extra week of vacation. The paradox is that employees often do not have the opportunity to draw their annual leave. They are very busy, and that's why having time off work is so much appreciated.
Benefits associated with education did not score well in the same survey. They did not make it to any of the five most attractive employee benefits. Companies responded flexibly to this fact, and language courses were the second most frequently abolished benefit of 2011 following the thirteenth salary.
Similar information are arising from a May survey conducted by Sodexho. According to it, employees prefer benefits which allow them to balance work and personal life, following by health care and provision for old age benefits.
The above results do not mean that employees would not be at all interested in further education. They are very well aware of the necessity of their own competitiveness. In the study of the University of Economics, however, only 22.3% of respondents selected qualification replenishment as important for work motivation. To a greater extent, this benefit was selected by women, people with secondary education or university education under 33 years. According to the authors of the study, an interesting finding was to see lower interest in education from management. Except for the fact that employees in higher positions tend to have good foreign language skills and have higher education, it is also because these people are very busy and don't have spare time.
Education providers will have to take new developments into account. There is no doubt that good language skills are necessary for the competitiveness of Czech companies. However, companies cannot and don't want to force their employees to language education. All-company courses do not ensure employee motivation to learn, and will not even increase their loyalty. Employers prefer to support individual language training, or in case of a newly arisen employee language need, they prefer to pay a short-term intensive course.
