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"Employers must offer these benefits to remain competitive in today's war for talent," said Carol Sladek, a work/life consultant with Hewitt Associates. "With the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, organizations recognize they need to offer attractive benefits that enable employees to better balance their work and personal lives."
The big new perks
Key findings of the study include:
o Flexible scheduling arrangements . Fifty-seven percent of employers offer flextime and 47 percent offer part-time employment. Other flexible options include job sharing (28 percent), telecommuting (28 percent), compressed work schedules (20 percent) and summer hours (12 percent).
o Child care assistance. Overall, 90 percent of employers offer some type of child care benefits to employees. Eighty-eight percent offer dependent care spending accounts, 42 percent offer resource and referral services, 13 percent offer sick or emergency child care programs, and 10 percent offer on-site or near-site child care centers.
o Elder care programs. Forty-seven percent of employers now provide such assistance. Of those, 32 percent offer dependent care spending accounts, 40 percent offer resources and referral services, 17 percent offer long-term care insurance, and 4 percent offer counseling services.
o On-site personal services. Fifty-two percent of employers provide some type of on-site convenience or personal services to employees, such as ATMs (34 percent) and banking services (22 percent), travel services (18 percent), dry cleaning (15 percent), and discount purchases (12 percent).
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