THE ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS AND IT’S EFFECT ON EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY

Abstract

Reward management is the key to motivate employees in the present scenario of the work environment. Many researchers have deliberated on the same points that employ benefit packages will motivate employees at the workplace. In the case of benefits monetary benefits like cash rewards and insurances are most preferred by the employees. Many compensation personnel usually are in the state of fix to identify the right kind of benefit and most suitable to retain employees at the workplace. The Head of HR’s think about the ideal plans for offering a holistic compensation package. Usually benefit packages are kept a part of flexible plans and annually it is changed.

Moreover designing the best benefit package is challenge to the compensation executives or third parties which manage payrolls in today’s environment. One more important point to be considered at this juncture, it is understood that each industry or each organisation has set their own method of benefit packages. It is a daunting task to understand the best methods of benefit packages which motivate employees. Some of the organisations follow the industry or market place standards to offer the benefit packages, but is helping employees in motivating and helping them to improve productivity is a question mark.

Off late, keeping employee’s morale and seeking their productivity is a challenge, but of course, work environment matters a lot at the same time some specific employee benefits matter a lot. Today’s employee expects flexible time, work from home, team events, learning opportunities, family care programs, awards ,rewards, perquisites, pension funds, break encouragements, leave travel allowance, family time out and other benefits are important for encouraging employees at workplace. Corporate caring for employee’s health and happiness makes all round impact on the work environment and retention of employees. Many researchers have presented a detailed point on giving breaks to employees is an important phenomenon.

In this paper the authors have made an effort to understand the type of benefit packages given in the engineering company called ‘Semcon’ India private limited. The authors have made all the efforts to collect data from almost all employees who were present during the time of data collection at the industry. The instrument used to collect data is through structured questionnaire with the variables consisting of recognition, mobile and internet benefit, leave policy, performance, productivity and educational benefit in order to link that with the productivity and identify the impact of the variables. In this paper the authors have used SPSS statistical package for correlation and chi-square tests. Sample size chosen for the study for the study 108 employees of Semcon. The data was collected from 72 males and 36 females. The study finally concluded that employee benefit packages do impact the productivity at the workplace.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1   INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 

According to Mathis and Jackson (2013), employees benefit are forms of indirect compensation given to an employee or group of employees as part of organizational membership. Brath and Gold (2015), define them as that part of the total reward package provided to employees in addition to base or performance pay. Employee benefit, focus on maintaining (or improving) the quality of life for employee and providing a level of protection and financial security to worker and their family member. Like base pay plan, the major objective of most organizational employee compensation programs is to attract, retain and motivate qualified and competent employees.(Bernadin,2017). Mathis and Jackson (2013), continue to state that an employer that provides a more attractive benefit package, often enjoys an advantage over other employers in hiring and retaining qualified employees when the competing firms offered similar base pay. Infact, such benefits may create ‘golden hand cuffs’ making employees  more reticent to move to other employers. Some common examples are, retirement or pension plans, medical and dental insurance, education reimbursement, time-off , paid vacation, use of computer car etc. Productivity is a relationship between outputs and inputs. It rises when an increase in output occurs with a less than proportionate increase in inputs, or when the same output is produced with fewer inputs. (Ilo , 2015).  Productivity can also be considered in monetary terms, if the price received for an output rises with no increase in the cost of inputs, this is also seen as an increase in productivity. Productivity improvements can also be understood at different levels. The productivity of individuals may be reflected on employment rates, wage rates, stability of employment, job satisfaction or employability across jobs or industries. Productivity of enterprises, in addition to output per worker, may be measured in terms of market share and export performance. According to a study carried out by the U.S.A. Chamber of Commerce in 2006, employee benefit in the U.S.A, were not a significant part of most employees’ compensation packages until the mid twentieth century. For example, in 1929, benefits comprise only about 3 percent of total payroll cost for companies. However , employee benefits in the U.S, now comprise approximately 42% of the total payroll cost. Several things account for the tremendous  increase of employees benefit in the U.S. Employee benefit as generally constitutes a higher proportion of total employee compensation Europe than in the United State. In Europe they are most often the result of legislation, where as in the United States, collective bargaining has been more important in gaining such benefits for workers.The prevalence of employee benefit programs increase sharply during world war II because controls of this type of compensation were less stringent than controls on wages. (Martocchio, 2016). Employee benefits are also called perquisites and are often provided by the employer on his own initiative or they are the result of a collective bargaining or state legislative.