Which Benefits Do Employees Really Want? (10+ Companies With the Best Benefits)

Free lunch! 12 weeks of paid parental leave! Tuition reimbursement! You may have noticed more and more companies offering shiny benefits to recruit top talent. Your employees and top candidates are paying attention to what those companies are offering, too.

When BambooHR surveyed 1,500 U.S. workers, we found that 68% of job seekers want to know what benefits companies offer—yet 36% of HR professionals admit that their company doesn't disclose benefits information up front.

That could be a mistake. Benefits packages are critical when candidates are weighing multiple job offers (or deciding whether to apply at all). Beyond serving as a powerful recruiting tool, benefits also play a large role in how long employees want to stick around.

The benefits landscape is continually changing, and trends differ between industries, locations, and roles. As an HR pro and the architect of your organization’s benefits package, staying on top of what’s expected—and what truly stands out—will help you reach your company’s hiring and retention goals.

At BambooHR, we get a unique look into how companies of all sizes, industry, and geographical location are leveraging benefits to accomplish their goals—and how they’re using our Benefits Administration to do it.

Read on to discover benefits benchmarks that can help you gauge how your company stacks up, plus examples of companies who people really want to work for.

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8 Sought-After Healthcare Benefits

When it comes to healthcare, there's a basic set of obvious health and wellness benefits like medical, dental, and vision care. You’d be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn’t offer these.

What makes companies stand out is when they offer additional healthcare benefits that help their employees thrive—both physically and mentally.

Editor's Take: The Best Companies to Watch

The Best Healthcare Benefits

Above Average Healthcare Benefits

Basic Healthcare Benefits

7 Options for Paid Time Off (PTO)

Work/life balance is increasingly important to younger generations, and PTO is a big part of that. In fact, 37% of workers value paid time off more than pay raises.

PTO is pretty standard across the board, but it’s the amount of time, as well as the types of PTO offered, that really set you apart as an employer. We’re starting to see more companies adopt different types of reduced hours, like 4-day work weeks or Summer Fridays (a policy encourages employees to take Fridays off between Memorial Day and Labor Day).

Editor's Take: The Best Companies to Watch

The Best PTO Benefits

Above Average PTO Benefits

Basic PTO Benefits

Free Download: BambooHR PTO Policy Builder

How much time off is too much—or too little? What types of PTO should you offer? In most companies, these questions get pushed on HR’s plate. We have just the thing to help: a handy, advice-filled PTO policy builder, complete with examples.

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3 Ways to Support Retirement

Everybody’s workin’ for … retirement? Between a higher cost of living and longer life expectancies, younger generations have shown increasing concern about their ability to support themselves in retirement.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 67% of workers in private industry have access to employer-provided retirement plans, and the vast majority provide some level of matching. Today, job seekers expect companies to offer retirement benefits that help them find financial peace and security beyond their base salary.

Editor's Take: The Best Companies to Watch

The Best Retirement Benefits

Above Average Retirement Benefits

Basic Retirement Benefits

5 Ways to Improve Quality of Life

The work-from-home standard proliferated during the pandemic and has morphed into a work-from-anywhere mindset. Digital nomads want to work from coffee shops in Spain; parents want to take their kids to 2:00pm dance classes. In short, employees want to mold their work around their lives, rather than forming their lives around their work.

Fortunately, there’s quite a bit of data that shows some people are more productive when they have flexible working conditions. In one Stanford study, remote workers were found to be 13% more productive than their in-office counterparts.

Editor's Take: The Best Companies to Watch

The Best Quality of Life Benefits

Above Average Quality of Life Benefits

*Note: Flex-time benefits differ heavily between industries. Hybrid work options have become the standard in the tech industry but are less common in industries like healthcare.

Basic Quality of Life Benefits

7 Ideas for Offering Exceptional Family Support

Families come in all shapes and sizes, and the best companies build their benefits packages around that simple fact.

Family support becomes an especially important factor for employees who hope to start families in the near future. They’ll put a sharp eye on your leave policies as they decide whether your company is the right fit for their whole family—something that can heavily affect employee retention.

Editor's Take: The Best Companies to Watch

The Best Family Support Benefits

Above Average Family Support Benefits

Basic Family Support Benefits

6 Strategies for Addressing Growth & Development

The data doesn’t lie: Professional development is good for business. Employers who offer development opportunities have 15% higher employee engagement and 34% higher retention than those who don’t. It's not uncommon for employees to leave their roles for opportunities that will advance their careers.

Editor's Take: The Best Companies to Watch

The Best Growth & Development Benefits

Above Average Growth & Development Benefits

Basic Growth & Development Benefits

Next Steps: Reevaluate Your Benefits Package

With four out of five employees preferring stellar benefits over a pay raise, it’s no surprise we’re seeing companies amp it up on the benefits front. Beyond benefits serving as a recruiting and retention tool, they’re one of the ways you can show your employees that you truly value them as people.

When it comes to benefits, BambooHR makes it easy to choose what, who, why, and when. Not only does it support the full spectrum of benefits—including open enrollment, time off policies, performance reviews, and more—your employees have a user-friendly, one-login view of their benefits.

Make benefits administration a breeze all year ‘round.

See how quick and easy managing benefits can be when you do it all in BambooHR.

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