Which Benefits Should You Offer?

There are many different types of employee benefits out there. To make matters worse, for each type of benefit, there is a vast array of plans, companies, and administrators that can offer you that benefit in different forms.

There's strength in numbers. The more employees you have, the better off you are when it comes to benefits. Consider your size when contemplating benefits. It's going to be expensive to offer a rich benefits package to your employees if you have only two or three people working for you. In that case, you'll want to focus on the one or two benefits that you and your employees will value most and that are most cost-effective.

Work Smart If you have only a few employees, your best bet may be to join a consortium of other small businesses or purchasing alliance in purchasing benefits. To get information about such groups, contact your local chamber of commerce.

So what should you do? The first step is to decide generally which benefits you want to offer. The benefits you decide on should hinge on a number of factors:

• what you can afford
• what other companies are offering
• how the benefit can help your business