In today’s highly competitive job market, standard salary and benefits packages are no longer enough to secure and keep high-performing professionals. Research shows that 65% of Gen Z graduates already consider retirement benefits to be essential when considering whether to accept a job offer.
If you’re looking to attract and retain top talent, your retirement benefits package is a good place to start. Here’s how you can transform your benefits strategy for maximum appeal.
Strategies for Expanding Your Retirement Benefits
If you’re looking to attract and retain top talent, your retirement benefits package can play a key role. Consider the following ways you can balance your business needs while offering perks that appeal to high-performing candidates and employees.
Consider Your Business Context
As a business or HR leader, it’s critical that you align retirement benefits with your business context. Ensure you understand how employee tenure and promotions affect your business strategy.
If retaining experienced employees is key to your future business plans, consider how you can implement a phased retirement during which employees can collect some of their pension while still working on a part-time or contract basis.
Research What Employees and Candidates Want
Are top-tier candidates interested in immediate or accelerated vesting schedules? What about a higher match ceiling that exceeds industry averages? Have your employees asked about a brokerage window to allow them to trade individual stocks directly in their retirement accounts?
Providing these options can help you design a competitive benefits package that stands out from competitors and keeps high-performing employees from looking elsewhere.
Target Generational Needs
Different generations face unique financial pressures. Offering diverse retirement plans and account options allows companies to support employees at every stage of their careers and lives.
For example, younger Gen Z employees often prioritize flexibility and debt relief over long-term savings, making Roth 401(k)s (for tax-free withdrawals at retirement) and student loan matching through SECURE 2.0 perfect options.
Gen X may be looking to rapidly accelerate their savings, making plans with safe harbor structures and higher contribution limits ideal.
How to Position Your Benefits Offerings for Your Existing Workforce
You can consider your existing workforce as an internal talent marketplace. Although these employees already work at your company, you still need to ensure your benefits package is attractive and useful to them if you want them to stick around. Here’s how you can position your retirement offerings for maximum impact with your current team.
Frame Benefits Around Life Stages
Personalize the benefits experience by segmenting your internal communications to align your new offering with what each age group actually values.
Make sure to highlight instant benefits and flexibility for younger workers, promote financial security and support for mid-career professionals, and emphasize catch-up contributions and phased retirement for late-career employees.
Quantify the Value Proposition
Make sure your employees understand the value that you’re providing by translating complex concepts and plan changes into direct financial benefits.
You may choose to do this by providing personalized total rewards statements, complete with visual breakdowns. You can also offer specific growth scenarios, such as showing how a $100 increase in contributions will impact an employee’s wealth over the next 15 years.
Offer Multi-Channel Education
Your retirement benefits are only a retention tool if your employees understand them. A continuous, high-visibility communication loop not only ensures these benefits remain top of mind for your team, but it can also be used as a tool to educate them about their benefits.
Consider deploying micro-learning campaigns or hosting live interactive sessions to help employees figure out how to make the most of their perks.
Highlighting Your Retirement Benefits as Part of Your Talent Attraction Strategy
Retirement benefits play a significant role in your talent acquisition strategy. With that in mind, it’s important to:
- Highlight the immediate gain candidates will receive by framing your plan as a guaranteed return on investment
- Market your benefits throughout the candidate journey, including job descriptions, interviews, and offer letters
- Explain what sets your retirement benefits apart, including automatic enrollment, immediate vesting, diverse plans, or dollar-for-dollar matching
These actions can help you highlight your offerings to make them more attractive for the most qualified candidates.
Your Benefits Package Is Key to Building a High-Achieving Workforce
Clearly, modern workers are increasingly prioritizing long-term financial security. Still, finding the right mix of retirement offerings can be daunting.
If you’re not sure how to structure your retirement benefits package, AssetHR’s consulting services can help. Contact us today to see how our team can assist yours in building a benefits strategy that attracts and retains a high-performing workforce.