Setting a retirement plan is one of the best ways for a business to keep its most valuable asset—its employees. Without a retirement benefit, your employees are always going to look somewhere else for better opportunities. No one wants to stay with a company that doesn’t care about their future. So, in a nutshell, if you want to retain your most skillful and talented employees, you should offer them more than the usual compensation. You have to think about their future, too.
But not all businesses can offer retirement benefits—the kind that makes people want to stay with you. In truth, retirement benefits may be the most important form of compensation you can offer your employees, next only to health insurance benefits. Are retirement plans so expensive that small businesses cannot offer them to their employees? You can choose from a range of retirement benefits, but the most attractive for employees is a
defined contribution pension plan.
This kind of pension plan is when the employer and employee both make regular contributions to the plan. There is a defined amount that the employer and employee need to meet every year. The money is then invested in various products on your behalf, so you usually don’t know how much you will get when you retire. The only indication is that you will receive the amounts credited to the account, plus earnings from whatever investments made under your name.
The only question is whether a retirement plan is so beneficial for an employer that it’s worth the money and effort to offer it. There are many reasons why employers want to offer retirement benefits to their employees. Part of that reason is that it indirectly affects the success of the business.
Tax Advantages
Congress wants businesses to offer retirement benefits as part of their compensation package for employees. It makes sense, too. No government wants their elderly to be a burden to it in terms of social aid. If they have a pension plan, retirees don’t need to depend on the government for health care and even basic living expenses. That’s why your business can enjoy tax benefits and advantages when you offer your employees retirement plans.
Productivity
If the pension plan is income-based, it will
motivate the employees to work harder and achieve the organization’s goals. Income-based pension plans mean that the employer will contribute a bigger amount to the pension plan every time a milestone is hit. This will push the employees to work harder because they want to get their fair share of the profits. The bigger the employer plans to put into the pension plan, the more motivated the employees will be.
Recruitment
Are you eyeing to “steal” a particular employee from your rival company? Do you think that employee’s marketing skills will help your business reach its goals? You will have a better advantage of recruiting this employee if you’re offering better retirement benefits. Even young workers are more aware than ever of the importance of their
retirement plans. So, every time there’s a company offering them better deals and packages, then that’s where you’ll find them.
Supplement
You’re a good company, but you can’t offer a
great compensation package just yet. After all, you’ve barely gotten off the ground. Instead of competing in terms of higher wages, why don’t you offer better benefits? The good thing about retirement plans is that you can find good deals and programs to put your employees’ money. You can use it as a form of supplement to what you can currently offer your employees. You don’t need to give up attracting great talents because your pension plan might do the trick.
Personal
You can use your employees’ retirement plans to your own advantage. Administering the plan will open up opportunities for you to save for your own plan in the future. Not only will you need to pay lower fees, but you will also get professional advice since you’ll be dealing with a lot of agencies and companies that offer different pension programs. You’ll get the best of both worlds.
Retirement plans show that you care about your employees’ future, which you should. This is part of your responsibility as an employer. You have to care about what happens to them long after they left your company. If you develop a good relationship with your employees, you will spend years growing the company with them. Wouldn’t you treat them as your own family? And if you see them as family, you should care about how their futures will play out.