Hi, I'm Karen Hillen. Welcome to the My HR Partner podcast. We talk about all things HR from recruitment to ending employment. If you'd like support with your HR, check out our website, www. myhrp. com. au.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the My HR Partner Podcast. Now, today we're discussing employee benefits and what small businesses can realistically offer.
Cause we know that, you know, big businesses, they're able to offer conferences and all sorts of things. All sorts of things, but they've got big pockets, they've got big covers, very different for small businesses, but there's a number of things that you can do. And joined here once again by Karen Hillen from my HR partner to tell us all about what options are available.
Hi, Karen, welcome to the studio.
Hi, Adam. Thanks.
Okay. So as I said, very different, isn't it? Employee benefits from a small business to a very large organization. So first of all, why should small businesses consider offering their employees benefits?
Employee retention is going to be the number one thing.
I think, you want to keep your employees happy. So whatever extra little things you might be able to offer going to keep people engaged, um, wanting to continue their employment with you. They're going to feel valued. We've spoken about that a lot. That's one thing that I think is really important.
So there are lots of benefits with offering a range of different things and they don't have to be expensive. You're right. Big businesses have bigger pockets so they can offer. you know, lots of different, more expensive options, whether that's training, whether that's, you know, gym membership or whatever it might be.
But you can do that on a smaller scale with small businesses. You just have to be a little bit, you know, Innovative, think outside the box, ask your employees what they might want and within reason see what you can do to accommodate that. And that could be different for every person.
Absolutely. I mean, quite often it is just the small things that can make an employee feel valued, feel special, just something, something out of the ordinary.
So what types of benefits, Let's be innovative, give me a few ideas that you've seen used before.
Yeah, so I suppose one of the things that you probably need to think of straight up is whatever those benefits might be, talk to your accountant, because there could be fringe benefits, tax implications. Sure, good piece of advice.
And I, I am not qualified to give that advice, so I, or whenever I'm talking to a client about anything to do with this, especially if there's a cost involved or some type of financial benefit, whether that's a car or a computer or whatever it might be, talk to your accountant, so you understand what implications there might be.
gym membership's a good, example.
Sure.
There are some fringe benefits, tax implications. I don't understand what they are. So talk to your accountant because sometimes it's not worth it. The benefit that you might be giving the person, the tax benefit you think you might get in relation to giving that to them, you might pay more of a fringe benefits tax.
So it's important to understand, Those types of things that I know nothing about.
Sure. Sure.
But there are lots of other things. So there can be things that don't cost money. They don't have those implications. So it could be things like, one of the things I think I've spoken to you about before.
Birthday leave.
Yeah.
You get the day off for your birthday.
Love it.
I worked for a big organization, quite a few years ago now, and that was one of the things that they offered. So I think the, the parameters of it was that you could take it within a two week, period of your birthday. A lot of people would take the day after their birthday.
They might go out for dinner or go out and celebrate their birthday. So they would prefer to have the next day off so they can have a bit of a sleep in, have a bit of a rest, recover if they're a bit hung over. So that worked really well. So there were things, they actually have had an enterprise agreement.
So there were some rules around that. You know, I can't remember all of it, but there were, you know, pro rata, implications for part time employees, for instance. So You just need to set what that is around, how you offer that as a small business. Have a think about how do you offer that to casual employees for instance, how would that work because they don't have set days and hours.
So, You might only offer it to your permanent employees.
Sure. So that's another thing to take into consideration, isn't it? That one size doesn't fit all and to think a bit wider as you're going into thinking about benefits, because it may not fit casual, like you said, casual versus permanent or part time.
Yep. Yep. And You can do whatever you want. You're the business owner, you know, again, get the advice, make sure that, you know, you understand, you know, accounting implications, but your imagination can really, come up with whatever you think is going to be good. And again, as I've said before, ask your employees what they want, and it could be different for everybody, or it might be that you have a bit of a.
Brainstorming exercise and come up with something that is consistent across all employees, but everybody has a buy in. So, there are lots of different things. The birthday leaves one example. It could be that you have, employee of the month, employee of the week, employee of the quarter, whatever that might be.
And that could be anything. It could just be the recognition. There's nothing else because you can't afford anything else. Employee of the month may give the employee the afternoon off or, an extra day of leave or whatever suits your business, whatever you come up with. So I think it's got to suit.
The business, it's got to be practical. It's got to be something that you can be consistent with. So, it could be a 50 gift card. It could be movie tickets. It could be, like I said, different for every person. So somebody, their reward might be, a restaurant voucher and you've got a small team, you know, your team well, so that.
restaurant voucher could be to that person's favourite restaurant.
Sure.
That makes it a little bit more special. For somebody else, they might love going to the movie. So it might be movie tickets, to gold class or whatever it might be. The person could love the footy. So it could be tickets to the footy, or if you've got a bit more money to spend, it might be to the corporate box footy game.
I think. You it really can depend on the employees you have in business, what their interests are, what's important to them. So, I think it's endless, the possibilities, and the limits are what you can afford, and, and what you want to have in relation to those types of things. But there are so many different things that you can come up with.
And that can be on an individual basis, or if you don't want to. do that. It could be that you have a bit of a brainstorming session and have some ideas and get input from your employees. These are the sorts of things I'm thinking about implementing. What does everyone think?
Yeah, get feedback. Yeah, because you
might say a 50 gift card and everybody might say, Oh, that's fantastic.
But I might use that for groceries. So, Maybe something a little bit different could be special. Everybody might think the 50, vouchers a great idea because they need the money for groceries. So getting your employees import, I think is really important.
Sure. Can it go, can the, can there be a problem here?
Like let's just say you do put it in a program of benefits, you know, if targets are reached or, you know, such and such where some employers are getting benefits all the time through, through doing what they need to, obtain those You know, meeting their goals and others aren't.
Yeah, look, I think you've got to put a lot of thought into how things work, how things are measured.
Say it's an Employee of the Month award. What are the targets? What do they have to meet? And I think it's important when you think about those things. Is it the same people getting the awards all the time? If they deserve it, that's probably a good thing. Maybe it's going to incentivise other people to strive harder to get those things.
But sometimes it might be off putting for the people that aren't getting it, and might start getting a little bit resentful. So I think it's really important to really think about how those things are going to work. I've seen businesses where they will have team awards, for instance, so it'll be a team goal.
And. Everybody gets the same thing, but the team has to meet the goal. Sometimes it can be where there'll be a number of things that, an employee has to meet. And one of those things might be no complaints from clients and customers. And they might be the top performer when it comes to sales. But if they're getting complaints, Then that would rule them out to get that reward.
So again, it's going to be, really tailored to each different business and what's important to you as a business owner. But they're the sorts of things that are good to think about. Is this fair? Is it going to be equitable? Does everybody have a fair chance of being in the running for those types of things?
And that's where maybe an employee of the month type award might not be ideal. Because if the same person is going to get it all the time, because they're going to, they're the star performer, then you're probably going to have a negative effect where people are going to start getting upset about the fact that the same person gets it all the time.
So I think it's important to think and plan how you're going to judge, if you like, how somebody's going to get that reward. Or it could be that you have something across the board. So, it's more personalized, and that could be tied up with somebody's performance review, or it could just be some other completely different sort of reward program.
Some, there are some, apps and online programs out there where people can, you know, build up points and, and get rewards. So there are lots of different things that you can look at.
I think one thing may be worth, noting here and remembering is we've talked about the benefits being something, tangible like , a voucher or even time off, but, recognition.
I once worked for a, it was quite a large organization, but they had a very structured recognition program. When I say that, what I mean is the, and I'm talking in the sales area in particular, but I did have it in the other areas of the business, but the sales, you'd always have the sales person of the month who'd get a big trophy.
Yep.
And they had trophies for everything. But so every time someone reached a milestone, it's like 20, 20 first sale, first sale, you got. A trophy might have been a medallion, then 20, you got something else, 50, you got another thing. And they were very trophy based. They were always really flash trophies, but it did foster a very good culture of competition and healthy competition because you know, the people who were doing well had a whole set of trophies on their desk.
And you know, plaques as well. So you get your name on the plaque. If you were most sales for a month, you, you got Your name on the plaque and how many times were you up there versus, but still everyone got one as they reached milestones as well. So personal goals as well as competition between salespeople.
So I think recognition can be, forgotten about sometimes that you could set in place as a benefit. Absolutely.
And that's why a lot of the programs are called reward and recognition because the recognition side of it is really important. And I love that idea of, you know, the trophy, the plaque, the certificate, whatever that might be, because he's celebrating that person.
You're celebrating their success. I've also heard of other businesses where they have. A bell and you go and ring the bell if you get your first sale. Yep. Or your first, you meet your first target or whatever that is. Or, you know, sometimes it might be, that you get a cake and a celebration at morning tea.
Yeah. Or if you're more health conscious, it might be, you know, a big fruit platter or something. So all of those things are gonna be different too. It could be, you know, a lunch. where everybody goes out and celebrates. I think when you're thinking of those sorts of things, you've got to look at things like, you know, people's preferences.
So, you know, if you're healthy and you don't eat sugar and cake, that's not going to be something that you're going to even like.
Which is me, Karen. I'd much prefer cheese and biscuits and cold meats. Thank you. I don't eat cake.
Yeah, absolutely. You can
get it wrong, can't you? Yeah, for
sure. And I think that's the thing.
A lot of, Businesses are going away from that whole cake for the birthday thing. Sometimes a business will just do celebrate, especially bigger businesses that have more employees. It might be we're celebrating, July birthdays on the 1st of July. And it might not be a cake. It could be just everybody gets together.
You have a coffee or a tea or, you know, water or whatever you're going to have, and it really is just everybody getting together to say happy birthday. And it might not have a cake or a fruit plate or whatever. Might just be. the recognition and the celebration more than physical things that, you know, like a cake or drinks, you know, a lot of people don't drink.
I think you've got to think of those sorts of things and take, the diversity of people into consideration.
For sure. And look, you continually blow me away, Karen, with your level of knowledge around All things HR. And we've covered so many different topics. And, you know, I don't propose that you've got a program to, to use to help businesses, you know, put a bit, a reward and recognition scheme in place, but if they ask you, you can give them advice.
Yeah. And I think that's the thing. There are programs out there, like I said, you know, there are online platforms that have reward and recognition programs where you can subscribe to them, pay money, have lots of different options of, you know, what the prize might be or what the, the next level of, you know, recognition is, but it could just be, somebody, gets flexible working hours and that quite often won't be a reward.
It'll just be a condition of somebody's employment, but it could be that, you get to have an hour early mark this afternoon because you just met that goal and it could just be a random thing. The whole recognition thing, it could just be a thank you.
Absolutely.
You did such a great job today. I'm really proud of what you've achieved.
It's got to be genuine too, but I think people really like the fact that they've been recognized. So coming back to, you know, cost, a lot of businesses can't afford a lot. So Some of those things don't cost anything. It really is just the recognition and the saying thank you and making sure people feel valued and that they know that you've noticed that they did a good job.
Absolutely. Fantastic. Thanks again, Karen, for joining us today, providing such useful insights into employee benefits and why more importantly, why to do it and how to do it. You know, when you're not necessarily spending much money. So look for our listeners to explore how you can enhance your team's perks.
Head over to myhrp. com. au and look, that wraps us up for today. So join us next time for more essential HR knowledge that helps your business thrive. And until then, keep your team happy and your business healthy. Karen, thanks so much for coming in.
Thanks a lot. Have a great day.