Background and Work Situations of Employees
Employee benefits are a crucial factor in employee satisfaction and welfare (Jung & Yoon, 2015). These benefits include programs which ensure an employee with a secure future. A company is bound to provide employee benefits to its employees to ensure that their employees get security in return for their devoted services to the organizations (Beautement, 2016). This report aims at interviewing three professionals from three different organizations, to learn about their preferences in the employee benefits which they are getting in their workplaces. The report would also be focusing on the various benefits plans which they would be getting from their organizations. A proper interpretation of the responses given by the employees would be made possible by the demographics data and work situations. From the acquired data from the employees, a few key learning outcomes would be assessed. These would include the analytic interpretation of the qualitative data, in terms of learning experiences. The three employees, whose names and names of their organizations are supposed to stay confidential, will be referred to as A, B, and C throughout the report.
As per the interview, the demographic background and work situations of the employees are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Employee A works in an IT company and is 28 years old. He has been in association with the company for over four consecutive years. His job description fits that of a software developer. He is born and brought up in Winnipeg, and currently working in Edmonton. He says that his organization is a multinational corporation of an immense size. His job there is to develop codes in Java and Python to develop software applications for the clients of the organization. He works seven hours a day, six days a week. He has been happy in his job and coming from an IT educational background, he admits that he would like to stay in the organization for more years to come.
Employee B is 24 years old and works in an organization that belongs in the telecom industry. He has been in association with the company for just a little less than two years. He works in the company as a customer care executive. Therefore, his job is to answer calls from clients and address their problems in a way that effectively solves the problems or queries of the clients. He is born and brought up in Edmonton, and has also been working in the same city. The small organization which he works for, is a subsidy of a large nation-wide telecom company. He works eight hours a day, for six days a week. The employee discloses that he has little to no complaints regarding the kind of work that he does in the organization, but sometimes the job gets too monotonous and sometimes even frustrating for him.
Employee Benefit Preferences of Three Professionals
Employee C works in a small-sized advertising agency, and is 51 years old. He works there as a graphic designer. His job is to design banners and other forms of print advertisements, based on the content that is given to him from the key creative team. He was born in Montreal and having lived there for six years, his family moved out with him to Oakville. He has been working for six hours for five days in a week. He has disclosed that he is not happy with his work life at the present since his ambitions were to work as a content writer in the organization. He even complains of the salary that he gets, and claims that it is not worth the effort which he puts into his work.
Employee A states that his two most favourite employee benefits programs are medical insurance and flexible spending account. He states that medical insurance is necessary for any individual, citing that healthcare expenditure in Canada is very high, and knowing that the company would be taking care of the critical healthcare expenditure which need a lot of money, gives him confidence in the company. This is because he is assured that he does not need to save extra money for medical emergencies, since the company is taking care of that expenditure. This saves him some money according to his responses. Upon being asked about why flexible spending account is also one of his favourites, he states that insurance does not necessarily cover each and every aspect of health care. Therefore, for those parts which are not covered by the insurance, are covered by the FSA, which saves some more money for him at the end of the month.
Employee B states that his favourite employee benefit programs are Employee Assistant Program, and medical insurance. Employee B states that he struggles with his finances very often alongside some work-related issues. He says that he appreciates how his company has extended their hands out to its employees when they have needed assistant in the kind of hectic work that they do for their work, and also regarding some of their personal development and issues. He states that this is something that helps the sustainable development of the employees in the long-run. He also says that medical insurance is a mandatory benefit which every employer should provide, and is his favourite because health conditions in the modern generation is worrisome, and having an insurance that takes care of the expenditure of his medical treatment in times of serious illness, is a factor that is highly beneficial and economic.
Suggested Changes in Employee Benefit Programs
Employee C says that his two favourite policies of employee benefits include life insurance and long term disability insurance. He is of the opinion that since he is old now and has no certainty regarding how long he would be able to live for, he wants to ensure that his family does not suffer after his death, especially when he has not been able to save much throughout his life due to the low wages which he has been receiving. While supporting the long term disability insurance, he says that old age has been a huge threat to physical health and fitness. He argues that a scenario can very possibly arise at this stage of life where a person would have to stop his work life due to physical disabilities or prolonged illness. He says that this is why he is fond of this program as this ensures that even when he will not be able to work due to health issues, he will be receiving some money from the company to spend for his and his family’s living.
Upon being asked about the one thing which the employees would like to change about the one change which they would like to make in their benefit programs, following is how the interviewees responded.
Employee A suggested that flexible spending accounts should deduct lesser money from the employee’s salary base and that should rather be added to the medical insurance. He further justifies his claim by saying that expenditure in the event of a critical health issue needs much more money, than a simple FSA does, and suggests that the latter is just an appealing additional benefit which does not require to be funded too much.
Employee B suggests that Employee Assistant programs should include assistance on more aspects of personal development of employees, which can lead to further and faster sustainable development of the workforce of the company.
Employee C suggests that he would be willing to change the way in which medical insurances are done for the employees, and adds that employees should avail plans and schemes of the insurance at their own accord and affordability.
What was learnt from the interview is the fact that every employee, no matter which sector of work they have been working in, appreciate employee benefits and pension plans. One way or another, each of the employees believe that these are a few benefits which the companies provide to their employees which save money for the employee. It can also be observed from the responses of the employees that these benefits are perceived by them as a security to their future, and are mostly appreciated for the high medical expenditures that are covered under these plans. This indicates that Canadian professionals are mainly concerned about the high medical expenditures in the country.
Implications of the Interview Results
There was a big surprise that can be concluded from the responses of the interviews of the professionals. None of them talked about the pension plans or other retirement benefit plans which the companies provide to their employees. This was something which had not been anticipated for, since every employee, while looking at the distant future, would always come across analysing their pension schemes for post-retirement. However, this seemingly is not the case. Not even the 51-year old graphic designer listed the pension plans as one of his favourites. This is indicative of two things. Firstly, pension plans have become so much common these days that listing it as a favourite has become unlikely, since it is more of a grant than a benefit (Bédard-Pagé et al., 2016). Secondly, it implies that Canadian professionals have a tendency to overlook the analysis of their pension plans and schemes since what the government and private companies alike pay for the employees’ post retirement lives, mostly prove to be sufficient enough (Karimi, 2017).
It is important to analyse and comment on what each employee would want to change in their benefit plans. Employee A suggests that the division of money should be more on medical insurances and less on FSA. This is actually a feasible thing to do as it will not cost anything more to the company. It is reasonable too as A points out, that the investment required for medical emergency far exceeds the need for FSA’s, with the latter only being an appealing benefit for the employees. It would also give the company external competitive edge, pertaining to their higher investment in employees’ medical insurances. Employee B suggests that employee assistant programs should include more aspects of employee assistance and development. This is reasonable since employees do need guidance for the benefits of the organization itself. Developing employees mentally and skilfully can boost the productivity of the organization, as well as improve organizational performance as a result of fresh minds and confident working conditions. Employee C’s suggestion of providing schemes for insurance at the accord of the employee, can be reasonable. This is because each employee has his own affordability. The idea is feasible as well since employees are paying according to their own affordability.
The challenges which pension and benefit professionals face in an organization are vast and diverse. The responses about what they would like to change about the plans that exist in their organization is clearly reflective of their challenges. One challenge was regarding the allocation of funds. There are many plans and schemes which employers provide to their employees, and many a times, the company’s decisions about allocating the money for various plans and schemes, are not what comply to the employee’s needs. Secondly, many organizations do not even have the benefit for employee assistant for the personal and professional improvement of employees. Even when that benefit exists, employees hardly get some of the main aspects of their personal lives covered under it for their effective improvement. The responses also reveal that many organizations deduct from the base salary of the employees according to their own will, without consulting with the employees themselves. This is a serious challenge as employees have their own affording capabilities and that could often be insufficient or more than required for the employees.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be deducted that the pension and benefit plans across Canada in the private sector is numerous. Three professionals from three different backgrounds were interviewed and their responses revealed that they are all mostly appreciative of the medical expenditure which the company covers for them in emergency situations. However, none of the interviewees mentioned pension plans as a benefit. The professionals claimed a numerous things which they would like to change about the companies’ benefit policies. These reasonable and feasible changes could lead to higher productivity in the organization and the development of the organization as well, or even promote internal equity within the organization.
References
Beautement, A., Becker, I., Parkin, S., Krol, K., & Sasse, A. (2016). Productive security: A scalable methodology for analysing employee security behaviours. In Twelfth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security ({SOUPS} 2016) (pp. 253-270).
Bédard-Pagé, G., Demers, A., Tuer, E., & Tremblay, M. (2016). Large Canadian public pension funds: A financial system perspective. Bank of Canada Financial System Review, 33-38.
Jung, H. S., & Yoon, H. H. (2015). Understanding pay satisfaction: The impacts of pay satisfaction on employees’ job engagement and withdrawal in deluxe hotel. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 48, 22-26.
Karimi, S. (2017). Beyond the Welfare State: Postwar Social Settlement and Public Pension Policy in Canada and Australia. University of Toronto Press.
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