International employee benefits – Ready for any and all new ways of working
The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way we work, and employee benefits need to follow suit if they want to remain relevant and competitive in today’s hybrid culture.
Global companies like Facebook, HubSpot, Twitter and Microsoft1 have long ago announced permanent work from home options, leading more and more employers to rethink keeping large, permanent office spaces for their employees. Concurrently, many employees have realised that if they can work remotely, they can work from anywhere in the world. While this, coupled with the ability for HR managers to recruit new team members from a wider (global) talent pool, has significant benefits, having staff scattered all around the globe does also pose its own administerial challenges.
20 to 25% of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week. This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic and could prompt a large change in the geography of work, as individuals and companies shift out of large cities into suburbs and small cities.2
McKinsey – (an analysis of 2 000 tasks used in ±800 occupations across 8 focus countries, namely China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States)
“There’s a huge demand for international employee benefits, particularly those that can provide a UK domestic product, an EU-regulated product and an international product. Few insurance providers are able to offer this,” explains Myles Woolford, The Unisure Group’s Head of Commercial Risk Partnerships.
Two of the most compelling features of offering employees international employee benefits include flexibility in where staff members reside and being able to offer all employees equal benefits, something that is particularly difficult to do across multiple countries. As diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) moves further into the spotlight, employers need to start thinking about the employee benefits they are offering from this point of view as well.
Not only has prioritising DEI been shown to help organizations’ bottom line, there’s also a strong connection to employee retention and engagement…Employees who are a part of a corporate culture that values flexibility and inclusion, supports diversity, responds to social justice causes, and encourages empathy generally report 70% better well-being than those who work in an organization that does not offer DEI support.
Guardian Life – The top five benefits trends of 2022
Post the pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase in Employer of Record (EOR) companies being formed. The purpose of EORs is to assist companies in employing anyone in the world, and allow current employees to emigrate without benefit changes; all of this in a compliant manner with the labour and regulatory of the countries they are domiciled in. This is particularly especially prolific in the tech industry, with the demand for developers ever increasing. In this instance, then, we’re seeing EORs fast becoming the solution labour shortages in developed markets, such as the United States, for example.
“Employers are increasingly choosing international benefits because of the consistency those benefits can offer employees from all around the world,” explains Penny Towers, a Unisure Business Development Underwriter who boasts more than 30 years’ worth of experience in the insurance industry. “We’re seeing quite a few American tech companies are moving into Europe (such as Air BnB setting up an office in Dublin, for example) and they want to replicate the benefits that they offer in the States for their European offices. But the more we deal with European brokers, the more we realise how few companies can offer a policy that is truly geared towards multinational companies.”
What The Unisure Group is able to offer by way of international Group Life and Disability benefits is a streamlined, efficient process without any of the hassle of trying to equivalent domestic products in numerous different countries. With Unisure, brokers, HR managers and EORs have the distinct advantage of only having to deal with one company and one point of contact across all of their various territories, saving time, management and significant resources.
Another significant advantage is the fact that Unisure’s corporate products offer significant flexibility, allowing brokers to present employers with multiple cost-effective tiers to suit their particular budget, industry and benefit needs. The fact that we can let employers grade their benefits worldwide according to their different staff levels is a major selling point, and it’s this flexibility that is putting Unisure in the spotlight.
“That’s really what sets us apart at Unisure – our adaptability and willingness to work with our brokers to find a solution for the client,” Penny explains. “We understand that one size doesn’t fit all and because we’re a very client-oriented business with agile, dynamic offerings, we look at everything on a case-by-case basis.”
If you’d like to know more about The Unisure Group’s International Employee Benefit Solutions, visit our Group Benefit Solutions Page.
Sources:
1.
- FlexJobs, 30 Companies Switching to Long-Term Remote Work
- Forbes, After Announcing Twitter’s Permanent Remote-Work Policy, Jack Dorsey Extends Same Courtesy To Square Employees
- World Economic Forum, Microsoft will let employees work from home permanently
2. McKinsey, The Future of Work after COVID-19, February 2021 report
3. Guardian Life, The top five benefits trends of 2022
4. Myles Woolford, Head of Commercial Risk Partnerships, and Penny Towers, Unisure Business Development Underwriter, Interview, 10 February 2022