What Are Employee Lifestyle Benefits and Why Are They Important?

The world’s top com­pa­nies seem to know some­thing oth­ers don’t: an orga­ni­za­tion’s suc­cess often direct­ly cor­re­lates to how well they treat their employ­ees. When peo­ple are hap­py, they bring that ener­gy to work.

Peo­ple derive a ton of val­ue from their work and how suc­cess­ful they are in their careers. So, it’s no sur­prise that when peo­ple don’t feel respect­ed or val­ued by their employ­ers, it can sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact their lives. That’s why so many top exec­u­tives and orga­ni­za­tions are pri­or­i­tiz­ing employ­ee well-being over almost everything.

It’s all part of an inno­v­a­tive and pro­gres­sive move­ment that is rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the way employ­ees are treated,and a sig­nif­i­cant part of this move­ment deals with the adop­tion of lifestyle benefits. 

Lifestyle Benefits: What Are They?

Employ­ee ben­e­fits have always been a crit­i­cal part of great busi­ness. If com­pa­nies want to inspire brand loy­al­ty and fos­ter a sense of com­mu­ni­ty with­in their team, they must treat their peo­ple well. That’s why orga­ni­za­tions start­ed offer­ing more tra­di­tion­al employ­ee ben­e­fits in the first place, like:

• Health Insur­ance

• Life Insur­ance

• Retire­ment Plans

• Dis­abil­i­ty Insurance

Those ben­e­fits are now the bare min­i­mum. They’re almost as expect­ed as a com­pet­i­tive salary and paid time off. In fact, many high­ly qual­i­fied employ­ees won’t even con­sid­er a job if these ben­e­fits aren’t already built into the com­pen­sa­tion package.

Com­pa­nies have to offer more to attract and retain top tal­ent. That’s where lifestyle ben­e­fits fit in. They are the great­est solu­tion to employ­ee well-being because they’re impact­ful in a way that gen­uine­ly improves the employee’s qual­i­ty of life. 

The Four Pillars of Employee Well-Being

Employ­ee well­ness is loaded with exis­ten­tial mean­ing and con­flict­ing ide­olo­gies, but under­stand­ing it is an essen­tial part of out­stand­ing lead­er­ship. If employ­ers want to pro­mote hap­pi­ness and well­ness in every area of their employ­ees’ lives, they must focus on the four pil­lars of employ­ee well-being.

• Phys­i­cal Well-Being

• Emo­tion­al Well-Being

• Finan­cial Well-Being

• Social Con­nec­tiv­i­ty

If a com­pa­ny is active­ly seek­ing to impact the well-being of its employ­ees, lifestyle ben­e­fits is the place to start. Lifestyle ben­e­fits are meant to impact peo­ple’s lives by spark­ing joy, giv­ing them time back and enrich­ing their lives and the lives of their families.

The Difference Between Lifestyle Benefits and the Rest

Lifestyle ben­e­fits aren’t just the bare min­i­mum mas­querad­ing as qual­i­ta­tive care. They aren’t perks, like sea­son­al gift cards deliv­ered en masse or ping pong tables for the office.

These ben­e­fits are mean­ing­ful ser­vices that meet the needs of employ­ees today. Not tomor­row, next week or ten years from now. Employ­ees don’t have to be sick, deceased, dis­abled or over 65 to use them.

Lifestyle ben­e­fits are ben­e­fits they can enjoy now.

Why Do Lifestyle Benefits Matter?

70% of all employ­ees say that ben­e­fits are a crit­i­cal part of con­sid­er­a­tion when search­ing for a new job. 83% of mil­len­ni­als say they’re even will­ing to change careers in favor of a com­pa­ny that offers fringe benefits. 

Why are lifestyle ben­e­fits so essen­tial to the mod­ern employ­ee? Because they rein­force a new state of mind.

Orga­ni­za­tions that care about their peo­ple active­ly pur­sue holis­tic employ­ee well-being. By pro­vid­ing lifestyle ben­e­fits, they seek to improve their employ­ees’ phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and men­tal health while cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment that cul­ti­vates social connectivity.

The best com­pa­nies in the world don’t offer lifestyle ben­e­fits to improve employ­ee engage­ment, reten­tion and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, but they are pos­i­tive by-prod­ucts of these types of ben­e­fits. Top com­pa­nies offer lifestyle ben­e­fits because they care about sus­tain­abil­i­ty and help­ing their employ­ees become health­i­er, whole and vibrant­ly alive.

Lifestyle Benefits Are Relational, Not Transactional

Lifestyle ben­e­fits should­n’t be mer­it-based. Rewards and recog­ni­tion pro­grams are essen­tial for cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive atmos­phere for employ­ee growth, but these ben­e­fits should be offered to employ­ees with­out strings or requirements.

When orga­ni­za­tions offer lifestyle ben­e­fits, it’s about build­ing pos­i­tive, long-term rela­tion­ships between exec­u­tives, super­vi­sors and employ­ees. It’s about invest­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to employ­ee well-being. It’s about car­ing for oth­er human beings, no mat­ter their posi­tion with­in a com­pa­ny or cir­cum­stances in life.

Lifestyle ben­e­fits should be at the core of uncon­di­tion­al care. No team mem­ber should have to earn appre­ci­a­tion, val­ue and respect. They achieve that right just by being a liv­ing, breath­ing mem­ber of their organization.

Simplifying Lifestyle Benefits With Fringe

Inter­ests, back­grounds and per­spec­tives will vary from per­son to per­son. So, it’s a log­i­cal assump­tion that dif­fer­ent peo­ple are going to want dif­fer­ent things. For exam­ple, while some employ­ees may favor ben­e­fits that offer mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences, oth­ers may want ben­e­fits that sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact their day-to-day lives.

The one-size-fits-all approach sim­ply does­n’t work, and no mat­ter how well-inten­tioned an orga­ni­za­tion is, there are inevitable lim­its to what it can offer. That’s why cus­tomiz­able lifestyle ben­e­fits are the per­fect solu­tion for diverse teams.

Fringe’s plat­form makes employ­ee ben­e­fits prac­ti­cal and straight­for­ward. Employ­ees are allowed to choose from over 100 unique lifestyle ben­e­fit options. Each ben­e­fit offered on the plat­form was cre­at­ed to improve an employ­ee’s social con­nec­tiv­i­ty and men­tal, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al well-being. Con­tact our team to sched­ule a free demo today!