Study: Over half of employers in Romania do not offer flexibility in benefits, but consider introducing such a program
Over 80 percent of the employers consider increasing staff costs to be the main obstacle in implementing a program with flexibility in choosing benefits, according to the Employee Choice study conducted in EMEA by Mercer Marsh Benefits. In Romania, 62 percent of the employers also mention these costs as being the main reason.
On the other hand, almost two thirds of the respondents that implemented such programs said this led to a decrease in costs (43 percent) or no additional costs was brought to the current budget for benefits (23 percent).
The study’s results show a positive response from employees related to flexibility of benefits.
“In Romania, although the number of companies that offer flexibility in benefits is still low, the employers already operating these programs report a high degree of employee satisfaction, of 78 percent, and state that the main reasons for implementing the program are employee motivation, retention and maintaining competitiveness on the labor market,” said Daniela Barbieru, manager Marsh Mercer Benefits Romania.
“If we consider that 68 percent of employees consider running such programs in the next two years, we estimate that the number of companies that will implement programs with flexibility in benefits will increase significantly in the next 2-3 years,” she added.
Asked about the challenges implied by flexibility in benefits, the respondents mentioned the cost (82 percent) and complexity of administration (81 percent) as important or very important. However, the advantages manage to counterbalance the cost, 72 percent of the employers saying the programs met their targets, with 10 percent more compared to last year.
On many markets, the idea of offering employees flexibility in benefits is still at an early stage, and almost 32 percent of the respondents introduced such a program in the last two years. The number is expected to further grow, 32 percent of the companies planning to offer a certain degree of choice in the next two years.
Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com
