Small businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a quality workforce, because of the perks demanded by employees, including health insurance. It’s a subject of intense scrutiny for several companies and their employees, especially in the current job scenario.
Health insurance is regarded to be a very important factor for an employee while considering a job offer, or while deciding to stay in the present workplace. One of the reasons why large firms still hold the monopoly for attracting quality labor, is the sheer number of benefits they offer to people. On the other hand, it is a kind of vicious circle for small businesses; as they have a lesser ability to provide extensive benefits to retain, or to attract quality employees. Since the perks offered by these companies are substantially less than larger organizations, they fail to attract quality workforce resulting in lower profits and lesser benefits for employees.
There are a number of options for a small business firm that provides a good alternative to retain or hire new staff without incurring much cost, especially with respect to healthcare plans. According to statistical reports, less than half of such firms (companies with less than 50 employees) in USA offer such schemes to their employees, which makes them turn towards the bigger market players. These companies have realized this hindering trend for their future growth, and started offering healthcare packages to garner and retain top employees.
Facts
Small business organizations have come up with certain innovations which make them a considerable entity. There are certain ways for providing affordable health insurance plans.
- These schemes encompass wellness programs which are significantly low in cost, and also quite popular among the working people. Regular wellness campaigns like a ‘No Smoking’ drive or a fitness camp attracts a lot of employee base, and is relatively more feasible than offering huge perks. 24 hour medical care, fitness centers, and wellness camps are quite likely to keep the workforce in high morale at a much reduced cost.
- Another important feature of these plans is to ask the employees to share costs of the insurance cover. This also ensures that the employees value such schemes and avail of its benefits, consequently leading to a happy workforce.
- Another successful way to handle these plans is to follow a graded approach. It involves lesser contributions from the employees, provided they perform and move up in the hierarchy of operations. In short, a higher rank employee will have a lesser share in his plan, as compared to the lower grades.
- Cheap premium payments for groups by the employer are yet another feature of health insurance schemes. A mass offer entails less burden on finances than individual plans, with more or less the same type of perks on each offer.
- All the health premiums are eligible for tax deductions, which makes them even more feasible.
- It is important to thoroughly study the family structure, preferred healthcare plans, and related factors of the employees. It wouldn’t be possible to satisfy each and every individual. However, a common consensus on the adopted plans can be evolved by this exercise.
Health insurance is a big business. In order to extract maximum benefits from the provisions of the scheme, a detailed study of the market forces, policies of the federal government, and a sound knowledge of business offers is a prerequisite. A thorough understanding of healthcare plans can guarantee a healthy present and a secured future.