How to Build a Global Benefits Plan
Remote's experts reveal how to offer benefits that are both locally relevant and globally competitive, how to ensure compliance when expanding globally, and how to create equality and build trust across your multinational team!
- How to develop an equitable global benefits program
- How to ensure compliance with local labor laws
- How different cultural norms and expectations can impact your benefits plans
- How to attract and retain top talent with excellent benefits for global workers
- When and how to offer benefits to contractors
Download the guide · research/permanent-establishment-risk-guide
Download the guide
Want to offer the best global benefits but not sure where to start?
Offering great benefits and creating equality across your team doesn’t have to be complicated! At Remote, we hire in 70+ countries all over the world. In our free Global Benefits Guide, our experts share what it means to offer global benefits and how to implement them in a way that makes sense for your company’s unique needs and goals.
The state of remote and flexible working
The importance of remote and flexible working is undeniable in today’s world, but which employees place the most value on these provisions?
We have uncovered the most in-demand employee benefits in 2022 by surveying 10,000 full-time employees across different genders, industries, job functions, countries, and parental statuses. The following highlights give you an indication of the insights you can find from the full research report:
- Our research found health insurance is most important in the USA
- Additional parental leave is the most important benefit to parents of one child
- Employees in the Netherlands want contributions from their employer for home office setup
Research highlights
The Remote Global Benefits Guide helps you understand the benefits most valued by employees.
Parents of one child value remote work more than parents with multiple children
The opportunity to work remotely is most important to parents of one child, though most employees, regardless of family status or future plans, agree remote work is important. Remote work and flexible hours offer parents the opportunity to work in a way that best suits their family’s circumstances.
Companies should recognise that the most productive hours of many employees sit outside of the traditional 9 am-5 pm timeframe, often due to childcare or other external commitments.
Allowing staff to choose the hours that work best for them can decrease the likelihood of stress and burnout, reduce employee absences and improve job satisfaction.
By offering remote work and flexible hours, employers will have a better chance of attracting highly skilled professionals with young children that are actively searching for roles with these provisions.
Employees in the Netherlands value remote work the most
Dutch employers are more used to their staff adopting a fully-remote or hybrid working model. Even before the pandemic, the Netherlands maintained a highly flexible working culture. This could explain why out of all of the countries surveyed, employees from the Netherlands are more likely to see remote work as an important benefit. Employers hiring Dutch workers should facilitate remote work to attract and retain top talent.
The UK, Germany, and USA follow behind the Netherlands, with employees in France the least likely to say remote work is important whether offered partially or all of the time.
Remote work is most important to employees in advertising and IT roles
Full-time remote work is most important to employees in advertising roles, while part-time remote work is most important to those in IT roles.
Whether part-time or full time, remote work is significantly less desired by employees in production and sales roles than any other. This could highlight that employers need to make remote work more accessible for people working these job functions so that they too can discover and enjoy the benefits remote work brings.
This shows the importance of offering remote work opportunities in at least a part-time capacity when it aligns with the function of the role. The best benefits packages are the ones that take into consideration the types of employees they will be offered to, and are tailored accordingly.
The most important employee benefits when considering a job move
We surveyed 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US to uncover which benefits are deemed the most desirable when considering a job move, across different genders, parental statuses, job roles, and industries. When considering a change in employment, the workforce tends to compare their current benefits packages with those offered by alternative employers. This helps them decide whether to stay or whether to go, and once they’ve made their mind up to leave, it informs which positions are worth applying for.
Whether an employer’s primary aim is to attract top talent or retain it, flexible working hours, company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions, and early finishes on Fridays are the top three perks to consider including in their benefits packages, based on our survey of 10,000 full-time employees in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. From an employee health-related benefit perspective, employees in the US see paid time off for self-care/mental health and private and family health insurance as more important than employees in any of the European countries we surveyed. Those living in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK all have access to universal healthcare, whereas, in the US, medical fees are an individual cost.
It is therefore crucial as an employer to develop customized benefits packages based on what is most valued in your business region. Offering medical insurance to support US employees with healthcare expenses will demonstrate your care and maintain equity across your global team.
In almost every job function, employees want flexible work hours - especially HR
Flexible working is also the most important benefit in every job function except production and other roles. Employers with high numbers of staff working in production roles and roles not listed specifically in our survey could be better off incorporating company-sponsored retirement plans or pensions into their benefit packages.
Looking at the rest of the survey results, we can see that access to dedicated breastfeeding rooms in the office is the most important to employees in advertising roles.
However, no matter the industry you’re in, employers should always consider creating dedicated private spaces for parents to breastfeed. Whilst promoting inclusion, this also helps welcome and support new parents returning to the workplace, and is likely to attract a more diverse range of high quality candidates.
