Are Employee Benefit Programs Being Given Enough Credit for Their Effect on Employee Attitudes?

Abstract

Over the past 10 years, human resources (HR) professionals have shown a tendency to underestimate the importance that employees place on employee benefit programs in terms of job satisfaction and employee attraction. Surveys show that employees value benefits over most other HR programs and that HR professionals are not in tune with those preferences. Possible reasons for the difference in opinion are that HR professionals are unaware of employee survey findings, the lack of respect sometimes given to benefit programs by HR professional associations and consultants and outdated job satisfaction studies cited in human resource and organizational behavior textbooks.