As the economy gathers momentum, the battle for top talent is heating up in corporate America. But using benefits packages to lure talent isn't as widespread as other recruiting methods, including using the job interview itself as a clincher or banking on scintillating advertising of positions.
The Society for Human Resource Management found in a survey that just a quarter of HR respondents are touting their benefits programs as a key way to attract talent. When it comes to recruiting C-Suite level candidates, the percent who trot out their bennies rises to 30 percent. But overall, SHRM concluded, most corporate recruiters don't view their benefits packages as a positive dealer closer.
Additionally, the survey found, less than 20 percent of companies even promote their benefits plans in any aggressive or positive manner to their current employees.
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Two annual studies by Allied Van Lines may shed light on this reluctance to brandish the benefits package during job interviews. Drawing up Allied 2012 and 2013 Workforce Mobility surveys, one finds that respondents tend to rate their benefits — especially health care insurance and retirement perks — quite low.
From the 2012 Allied study came these conclusions:
"Two-thirds of 500 HR professionals polled said they had 'extensive' or 'moderate' plans for hiring. … Yet, 52 percent of those respondents consider their recruiting programs to be only 'somewhat successful.' One of the biggest culprits, the study showed, is the lack of sufficient recruiting incentives — including benefits packages — with only 27 percent rating their healthcare plans a '5' on a scale of 1 to 5 and rating all other incentives even lower."
The 2013 Allied survey led to this summation:
"One gets the sense that HR professionals wish they and their companies could do more to entice promising candidates to make the leap. Asked to rate how strong their companies are on 14 recruitment factors, only four factors were judged to be key strengths by more than 20 percent of HR professionals:
• Health care benefits;
• company culture;
• quality of the executives and the workforce;
• retirement benefits.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
