Seventy-eight percent of employees say that benefits are very or extremely important in their decision to accept or reject a job, and 75% say they’re more likely to stay with their current employer because of its benefits program, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute.
Clearly, benefits are important, but it’s important to note that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to designing an effective global benefits program.
For instance, a U.S.-based company can’t simply offer its U.S.-focused benefits packages to global employees. Instead, it must adapt those packages to local markets, taking into account any local labor laws governing specific benefits, such as:
- Government-provided benefits
- Government-mandated benefits
- Retirement plans
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Company equity
- Bonuses and commissions
- Other perks, such as gym memberships or food vouchers
- Cost of living
Below you’ll find everything you need to know to get started on your global employee benefits strategy — including what it is, why it matters, and tips to help you create yours.
What Is a Global Benefits Strategy?
A global benefits strategy is a plan designed by international companies to ensure all employees receive equitable benefits, regardless of where they live. The goal is to harmonize benefit offerings while taking into account local labor laws, customs, and expectations in each employee’s home country.
This requires staying up-to-date with ever-changing labor laws across the globe and updating policies accordingly. That means a global benefits strategy is a living document that should be regularly updated.
As with creating a global compensation strategy, the key to an effective global benefits strategy is to balance employee needs and well-being while keeping your costs to a minimum.
When managed effectively, global benefits programs can significantly enhance employee engagement and retention, while also positioning your company as a top-choice employer for international talent.
Why You Need a Global Benefits Strategy
A well-designed global benefits plan helps you attract and retain top talent, reduces administrative burdens, ensures compliance with local regulations, and maximizes employee productivity and satisfaction. Crucially, it can also help you attract the best people for the job.
Let’s take a look at some of the most significant benefits of implementing a global benefits strategy.
1. It Boosts Employee Attraction and Retention
Offering a comprehensive global employee benefits package is essential for attracting and retaining top talent. For instance, 79% of employees consider health insurance a “must-have,” while 77% say offering paid leave is essential, according to Metlife’s Employee Benefits Trends Study.
A fair and equitable global benefits package is likely to help you hire the best employees — and keep them.
2. It Gives You Greater Scalability
Once you’ve established your global benefits strategy, it’ll be easier to adapt it as you bring more employees on board or expand into new markets.
3. It Increases Employee Productivity
Benefits programs that support employee wellness and improve their physical and mental health are known to boost employee satisfaction, motivation, and productivity.
4. It Promotes Better Work-Life Balance
A global benefits strategy provides equitable leave and additional benefits like healthcare, mental health days, and parental leave, which help employees achieve a better work-life balance, resulting in healthier, more committed employees.
5. It Improves Company Culture
When companies invest in their employees' welfare, it fosters loyalty, trust, and a positive company culture that strengthens teamwork and collaboration.
6. It Enhances Employer Branding
A strong benefits package helps position a company as an employer of choice, boosting its reputation with both potential hires and the broader business community.
Elements of a Global Benefits Strategy
There are many different types of benefits an employer can provide — or is required to provide — its employees, including the following:
- Health insurance and wellness programs: This could entail paying partial or full costs for workers’ health insurance, as well as offering health checkups, gym memberships, health education programs, or mental health support.
- Retirement and pensions: Helping provide for employees’ futures is an excellent way to boost loyalty among your staff.
- Paid time off and leave policies: Paid leave options are important to people of all ages around the world. In fact, 69% of Gen Z workers say paid leave is a “must have.”
- Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): These programs that offer resources and support to workers help improve employee well-being.
- Life and disability insurance: Offering safety nets like these can give employees peace of mind about unforeseen events.
However, every country has its own labor laws, as well as cultural expectations, that may influence — or even dictate — what benefits you offer.
So, before you jump into designing your global benefits strategy, it’s important to get familiar with the elements to include. Let’s break them down.
Government-Provided Benefits
These are the benefits national governments offer employees of all companies within their jurisdiction. Examples include healthcare — such as SNAP in the United States and free healthcare through the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
Many governments also offer paid maternity leave.
Your global benefits strategy should take into account all the government-provided benefits in the different countries where your business operates (or plans to hire).
Then, you’ll need to think about what benefits you can offer employees living in countries where these benefits aren’t provided by the government.
For instance, you might offer paid maternity leave to U.S. employees since it’s not provided by the government.
Government-Mandated Benefits
These are benefits employers are required to provide their employees, either directly or through government administration.
For example, in France, the government mandates employers to provide 30 working days of paid time off each year in addition to national holidays.
When designing your global benefits plan, consider the paid leave requirements in each country where your business has employees and ensure equitable leave options for all.
Voluntary Employer Benefits
These are benefits that employers offer at their discretion. They can be supplementary, such as pension plans or life insurance, or fringe benefits, like gym memberships and meal vouchers. Fringe benefits can help attract and retain employees without directly impacting statutory benefits.
How to Create a Global Benefits Plan
Ready to begin creating your global benefits plan? Use this six-step guide as a starting point.
1. Outline Your Budget
Before you can design a strategy, you’ll need to create a budget, taking into account government-mandated benefits, supplementary options that align with your company culture, and the cost of living in each country or region, among other factors.
You’ll also need to account for other additional costs, such as third-party administration, benefits management software, in-house staff, or global payroll.
Learn how to calculate the cost of hiring international employees.
2. Conduct a Competitor Analysis
Take a look at what your competitors are offering and use that as your starting point — then aim to meet or beat those benefits. Stronger benefit offerings can make a big difference when it comes to attracting great talent and building a standout employer brand.
3. Ensure Legal Compliance
The benefits you offer your employees need to be compliant with local labor laws in every country where you have team members. This requires carrying out in-depth research to understand each country’s legal requirements and designing a compliant benefits package.
Since these regulations are constantly changing, you’ll need to reassess your benefits program regularly to ensure full compliance.
4. Customize Benefits to Local Needs
Having a diverse team of people from all over the world can be a great strength for your company. However, it’s important to recognize that cultural and geographical differences exist. Be sure to tailor your benefits to each area, and seek input from local employees to ensure benefits are relevant and sensitive to specific regional needs.
Customize your benefits to match local norms, costs, and what employees actually value. That could mean offering private health insurance where public coverage isn’t great, adding retirement savings plans in places with low pensions, or making sure your team gets paid time off to celebrate their national holidays.
5. Use Technology to Deliver Global Employee Benefits
Managing global benefits manually can quickly become overwhelming, but by leveraging HR technology, companies can automate benefits administration, as well as manage global payroll, and more.
A centralized platform makes it easy to offer tailored health insurance, track time-off requests, manage bonuses, and update benefits as regulations change. Solutions like partnering with an Employer of Record (EOR) can simplify global benefits management.
6. Communicate Your Benefit Offerings Effectively
Clear communication about your global benefits plan is an important final step because employees in various countries may have different expectations around healthcare, time off, pensions, and more.
Explain in detail the benefits that your company provides, outlining not only what benefits are offered, but also how to access those benefits, any important deadlines workers need to be aware of, and who to contact with questions.
Avoid using jargon or assuming familiarity with concepts that may be common in your home country but new to employees elsewhere.
Also consider cultural sensitivity and individual preferences in how people like to communicate. Try to provide benefit information in multiple formats — written guides, FAQs, webinars, and 1:1 support — to meet different learning styles and cultural expectations.
Offer Equitable Global Employee Benefits with RemoFirst
Creating a global benefits strategy that meets the diverse needs of employees across various countries — while staying compliant with local laws — can be overwhelming for companies to navigate on their own.
But that doesn’t mean global benefits are only for large corporations. With the help of an EOR like RemoFirst, companies of any size can easily offer competitive, compliant benefits around the world.
At RemoFirst, we stay up-to-date on ever-changing labor laws so you don’t have to. Plus, our platform makes it easy to administer global benefits, thanks to our suite of tools designed to meet the needs of distributed teams:
- RemoHealth Global: Provides international private medical insurance in 185+ countries.
- RemoHealth Local: Offers locally compliant health insurance to international employees.
- RemoCare: Manages time off-requests, yearly bonuses, financial benefits, and more based on local laws.
Ready to employ and create a global benefits program your international team will love? Book a demo.
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