Three out of four employers will review their employee benefits offering in direct response to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research.
Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing’s research, undertaken this September, found a significant shift in attitudes from employers towards their benefits and wellbeing provision.
A total of 72 per cent said they would be reviewing their proposition as a result of the ongoing health emergency.
The research also highlighted how the pandemic had led to a significant change in personal as well as corporate attitudes towards employee benefits provision.
It found six out of 10 of those surveyed felt that employee benefits are now either ‘much more important’ (38 per cent) or a ‘little more important’ (22 per cent) than before the crisis.
Not one of those questioned felt that the need for employee benefit provision had reduced since the lockdown began.
Howden head of benefits strategy, Steve Herbert says: “The truth is that the mortality, physical health, and mental wellbeing risks for workforces and their employers have been made so much more apparent by the Covid crisis.
“It follows that employers in all sectors are now much more acutely aware of the need to support their workers wherever possible, and we are expecting this new attitude to feed through into many more conversations about a variety of workforce wellbeing initiatives in the months and years ahead.”
Howden undertook the survey as part of the intermediaries’ series of Howden Employment Webinars.
Herbert adds: “It’s really encouraging that so many employers and their human resources teams are now fully accepting the true value of employee benefits provision in protecting workers of all grades, their families and of course the employer too.
“2020 has been a year of desperately bad and sad news, but we hope that this new found understanding and belief in the value of a robust employee benefits offering will result in many more employers supporting their workers in all aspects of their wellbeing for many years to come.”