Most public employees loyal, happy with benefits

MetLife said survey respondents showed a willingness to “bear the responsibility” of increased cost sharing: “75 percent of public sector employees are very interested in a wider array of benefits that they can choose to purchase and pay for on their own. Nearly two-thirds of public sector employees say they are willing to pay more for benefit costs in order to get the choice they want.”

Given that situation, MetLife advised that now is the time to amp up the voluntary benefits offerings to both achieve cost savings and make happy employees even happier.

Here are the guidelines for implementing this strategy:

• Raise voluntary value: Based on the data supporting employees’ willingness to share costs in exchange for greater choice, “public sector employers can develop attractive benefit offerings by incorporating products that address specific employee concerns.”
• Recognize the impact of financial wellness: Half of employee respondents said they were worried about retirement savings, so MetLife suggests making available “financial education programs [to] boost employee confidence while positively impacting employee productivity.”
• Make benefits easy-to-understand and simplify enrollment: Always good advice, of course, but in light of survey data that showed “nearly one-third of public sector employees are not very confident they made the right benefits decisions during their last annual enrollment,” employers can help “by ensuring that communications are simple and that materials are delivered according to employee preferences.”
• Recognize benefits appreciation: There’s a disconnect between how employees view their benefits packages and how employers think they view them, according to this study. While two-thirds of employees are happy with their benefits, only 46 percent of employers believe their workers are satisfied with them. By communicating more with staff about satisfaction levels with benefits and which benefits deliver the most value, employers will be gathering critical information on current package design. In other words, a solid foundation for creating an even better package may already exist, MetLife said, so find out what’s working before the tinkering begins.