Build a culture of belonging among your people no matter where they are in the world.
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Expanding internationally is an exciting step for your business; it’s a statement of your success and your desire to continue growing. However, without thinking about how to implement a global employee benefits strategy that is consistent with your business’ values and locations, the success of your overseas operation could come under threat.
In this article, NFP’s global employee benefits team shares their top tips on how you can achieve a level of consistency within your business’ international employee benefits strategy. By focusing on global benefits management, you can work to build a culture of belonging among your people no matter where they are in the world.
1. Create Core Values to Stand By Regardless of Location
When it comes to your international employee benefits approach, we suggest having an overriding philosophy as well as several key principles. Ultimately, your capabilities may be limited by local rules, regulations, norms and access to solutions, but you can still create some core values to stand by regardless of location, such as:
- “We support the physical, mental and financial well-being of our people.”
- “We protect the families of our people.”
- “We invest in our people’s financial futures.”
- “We ensure our people are provided with benefits that meet the benchmark of the top 50%/25%/10% of local employers, wherever we operate.”
The values above can be whatever makes sense for your business and can help you build a picture of what you want your company to be known for, both internally and externally. These clear statements can improve the employee experience and help you recruit and retain the best talent, no matter where in the world your people are based. According to research from Gartner, “Organizations that effectively improve the employee experience can decrease annual employee turnover by just under 70% and increase new hire commitment by nearly 30%.”
By creating a consistent global employee benefits strategy for your people, no matter where they’re based, you can ensure:
- Everyone across each location is equally valued, treated fairly and feels motivated as part of the same mission.
- You attract like-minded people that embody your business and its values.
- Your business identity is clear across the globe, internally and externally.
- You are known as a company that stands by its values wherever it operates in the world, increasing authenticity and trustworthiness.
2. Benchmark to Understand How Far Your Budget Will Go
Your budget will play a huge part in determining your global employee benefits strategy and which benefits you can offer to your people.
Benchmarking and networking with peers can be a good measure of how an employer’s global benefits strategy shapes up in the market, allowing you to offer a starting point from which you’re able to develop further. At the very least, you should be looking for the legal minimum to make sure your offering is compliant, then beyond that, ask yourself questions like:
- “What is the global employee benefits norm?”
- “What benefits do the majority offer?”
- “What sort of organization are we and how can our global benefits offering reinforce this?”
3. Know How “Standard” Benefits Differ from Country to Country
Although it may sound easy to create global employee benefits philosophies and standards to support the well-being of your people, the challenges appear when you start looking at things on a granular level. While you may be able to keep your core values more general, you have to get specific when it comes to the insurance coverage that you are providing to your people. We’ve examined some general global employee benefits philosophical statements and highlighted why they may be hard to implement.
Philosophy statement: “We will provide all our people around the globe with at least three times salary life coverage.”
Challenge: Norms for this specific type of coverage can be four or even five times in some parts of the world, including in certain parts of Europe. So, because this norm has a wide range, it can be very difficult to implement three-times salary life cover; this would be not enough coverage in certain parts of the world.
Philosophy statement: “We will provide a retirement program for all employees.”
Challenge: When it comes to pensions and retirement, these can look very different from country to country, and many nations even offer retirement programs in some form. France, for example, has a state system, while in the UK it is standard to also pay into private plans. In parts of the Middle East where there is very little tax, pension and retirement benefits are not the cultural norm, with employers instead usually offering termination indemnities instead of a workplace saving plan.
Philosophy statement: “Everyone will need coverage, but we will leave it to each location to make its arrangements.”
Challenge: While it may be true that everyone in your organization needs medical insurance, figuring out if you should leave it up to each country or implement this benefit from a central level requires a lot of factors to consider. These are the types of conversations a specialist employee benefits partner can have with you through the process of benchmarking and ongoing consulting.
4. Get Specialized Support When Needed
In scenarios like this, your business can deeply benefit from external global employee benefits consultants and partners. The biggest challenge is basing your strategy on principles that can be consistent from location to location, even if the benefits themselves may not look the same. A partner you can depend on can help you come up with these consistent principles and back them with benefits that fit the location and your predetermined business values.
NFP’s Guide to International Benefits
If you run an international business, we understand how challenging it can be to manage the global employee benefits strategy in all your locations. From navigating legal and tax legislation to understanding local cultures, creating compliant and competitive benefits packages in multiple countries is no easy task.
In our latest guide, our global employee benefits management specialists outline how you can help your business thrive internationally, implement new benefits and, importantly, ensure they remain fit for purpose. You will learn:
- What to consider when designing your global benefits strategy.
- How to identify the right benefits and provider(s) to deliver them in all your locations.
- How to efficiently administer and run your global benefits program.
- How to review and maintain oversight of your strategy.