An employee benefits platform is a digital hub that allows HR teams to manage and distribute a range of employee benefits. These can include health insurance, private healthcare, pension schemes, retirement plans, cycle to work schemes, and unique lifestyle perks and flexible benefits like discounts and wellness programmes. 

An employee benefits platform brings all your perks and benefits together in one place. They help reduce the administrative burden of benefits management and give employees access to their benefits, perks, and relevant policies in a one-stop-shop.

To create an employee benefits package, first start by researching what your employees want and need. Ask which perks or schemes they’re interested in, so you can find benefits providers with the right functionality and options to support the most-valued areas.
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An employee perks and benefits platform like CharlieHR simplifies this process and offers you a wide range of benefits for your employees to choose from. This means your team members can create their own personalised benefits package that matches their needs exactly.

The most common types of employee benefit schemes include health insurance, dental insurance, paid time off, childcare support, salary sacrifice schemes, and retirement planning support. Perks like employee discounts, deals, wellbeing ideas and evouchers are also popular with employees.

In 2024, employee benefit trends suggest that people care most about mental health support and flexible working options — so it’s worth adding these to your employee benefits package if possible. You can support employee wellbeing in a number of ways, including with discounted yoga classes, vouchers for therapy, access to mindfulness apps, and more. 

Offering the right employee benefits makes you a more attractive employer, which helps with employee attraction and retention. It also signals that you value employee satisfaction and wellbeing, and that you’re happy to invest in the comfort and happiness of your staff.

There’s no set figure for how much employee benefits cost, but some research suggests that spending 20-35% of an employee’s salary on benefits is optimal. If you’re on a budget, a great place to start is by offering a range of cost-effective deals and discounts — which you can do at no extra cost with Charlie’s perks and benefits platform.

In the UK, employers are legally required to provide benefits like paid holidays, maternity and paternity leave, a small business pension scheme, and statutory sick pay. Additional benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, and perks are optional, but they go a long way towards attracting and retaining top talent.

Find out more about employee benefits in the UK.