The most popular benefit that European employers can provide staff in order to improve retention rates is a higher pension contribution, with nearly half of workers even prepared to sacrifice pay in return.
These are the findings of a survey undertaken among 7,500 workers in Europe’s 10 leading economies, including the UK, by human capital consulting and outsourcing firm Aon Hewitt.
The study also revealed that other appealing ‘salary sacrifice’ options were providing personnel with financial security in the event of a serious injury or illness or assistance in saving for major expenditure such as a home, car or school fees.
Ian Hinton, Aon Hewitt’s global benefits practice leader, said: “The war for talent may not yet be in full swing again, but employers need to begin to restock their benefits armoury in preparation. Employees clearly value non-financial benefits and implementing a flexible benefits strategy could not only help a firm’s staff attraction and retention programme, but can actually be extremely cost-effective too.”
The popularity of higher pension contributions also reflected the fact that current difficult economic circumstances had focused people’s minds on their own long-term financial security, he added.
But just under twice as many hard-pressed UK workers (21%) as their European counterparts (13%) would likewise be happy to sacrifice some of their salary in return for annual leave, Hinton noted.
