As employers, we’ve been navigating changing waters of employee benefits for decades. In that span, as mentioned in Part 1, I don’t know that we’ve witnessed a more pronounced and rapid evolution in workforce and worker thinking than employee benefits in the Post-Pandemic Era. What a challenge this has been and is, Colleagues.
That said, we’re discussing in this two-post series a couple particularly recognizable developing trends within the broader post-pandemic benefits conversation which are evolving even as we speak. In Part 1, we discussed healthcare benefits and the growing importance of significant and even full health insurance coverage as a core practice benefit and the mounting challenge of retaining employees long-term without this. Here in Part 2, we’ll cover the other, which as you’ve likely already guessed, is time off.
Time off has always been important, but this consideration for families and individuals has clearly taken its place as the top or at least a top consideration in team members staying long-term vs the practice being just another lily pad for job hoppers. And like healthcare coverage, this one is right up there with compensation and work culture as an absolute key to attracting and retaining employees in the post-pandemic new normal.
That said, we recognize there are a number of time off subcategories to be considered in striving to attract and retain great team members vs job hopping. Let’s break down and discuss those now.
1. Paid Vs Unpaid Time
The most core consideration of time off is whether it’s with pay. A good example here is maternity leave. Small business employers have long recognized the importance of providing maternity leave as an employee benefit, these days often included for both moms and dads (and sometimes, believe it or not new pet owners!), but many practices have offered this as unpaid time off. More and more the times demand this type of time off be with pay, or at least a hybrid of with pay for a period, with perhaps an additional period without pay at the employee’s option. We want to give our team members and their families every opportunity for a great start, and we also want to give ourselves every opportunity to attract and retain great team members who see our practice and team as something to come back to. Time off being paid is an increasingly important benefit for doing so.
2. Vacation Time
Paid vacation is the next consideration, and there are a couple sub-considerations with this one – HOW MUCH and HOW TAKEN.
Where once it was common for year one of employment to include a week (five days) of paid vacation (and once upon a time, even no vacation until reaching a certain duration of employment), it is growingly likely that won’t cut it post-pandemic. Two weeks is more likely a necessary minimum in this day-and-age for year one, as is additional vacation time in subsequent years. So is making vacation time available in full sooner in a team member’s employment. Where once it was common that vacation time accrued by the hour or day as an employee stayed with the business, such may well not cut it for attracting and retaining great team members in the new normal. Today’s workers are more inclined to require vacation time be available in full when they are inclined to take vacation. So if their spouse/family/friends are taking the ever popular vacation in Cancun this winter, they want to take vacation time then, and if they can’t, they may be…check that… probably ARE looking to hop (after using-up available time off, of course) even from day one on the job. So as much as it may depart from what has been the policy in the past, the more effective policy in today’s world is to make that vacation time available in full once a team member has completed the evaluation period. We realize some employees may take unfair advantage of this, but we need to get people hired and be conducive to their staying, right? And we need to innovate with strategies for which the times call to do it.
3. Holiday Time
Where once appreciated and perhaps even highly appreciated, this is another PTO benefit that has evolved more into expectation, with even the expectation itself an evolving dynamic. Including traditionally recognized holidays, adding newly recognized holidays (the bank employees get that day off, right?) and even closing early the day before or extending PTO through the day after are time off benefits we can leverage to keep a happy, engaged team and attract and retain new great team members in times when people who desire to be working are working. Yes, today’s workers expect paid holidays, but this is an area we can get innovate to attract and retain great team members with consumers a bit more tolerant of the practice being closed on these days (including day before and day after) than they once were.
4. Sick/Personal Time
Sick/Personal days are an additional time off allocation likely needed to attract and retain great team members in post-pandemic times. We want team members to know we support their ability to roll with life, and this is one for which we might start with a certain allocation of days and include additional time for additional time (adding hours/days progressively with length of employment) to inspire team longevity. From the employee’s perspective, it’s a fine thing to be able to take a personal day off with pay here and there for family and other events and not to have to use vacation time when home sick. And from the employer’s perspective, it’s good to have happy and hopefully resultingly dedicated team members who enjoy and even appreciate being able to do so.
5. Birthday Time
This one doesn’t require a large allocation of additional PTO (one day or perhaps half-day per employee) without need to close the practice but stands out in terms of providing something people appreciate (rather than expect) to help us attract and retain great team members. Yes, being short that person the day of her/his birthday causes some need to double-time it for the rest of us, but team members knowing they get the same more than offsets that. I have to think of my brother on this one, who for decades in his successful corporate law career has taken his birthday off every year to spoil himself a bit. “Getting this day” rather than having to “take this day” is a benefit I guarantee he’d value and of which he’d take notice!
6. Bereavement Time
Pretty much ditto birthday time on this one, albeit obviously for different reasons. “Getting the day” rather than having to “take the day.” Here we likely need some defined parameters, such as limiting this to immediate family, but remember, the idea here is to lend to strong culture by way of showing the value we have for living life beyond the workplace, and we want to WIN the workforce battle for getting and keeping great team members, not just fight the battle, right? It’s about innovation that can help us thrive, friends, not just getting by.
7. Achievement Time
In addition to these time off strategies, as a final innovation, I love providing what at THRIVE call “Achievement Days,” where the entire team can earn a bonus day or half-day off here and there when we’ve achieved certain pre-determined objectives. So in addition to bonus compensation earned as we achieve objectives together, we might add a Team Achievement Day as a day off with pay, say at the close of Q-2 if we’re on-target at the half-way point in the year. We’d of course need and want to be mindful of patient impact and perception with such a thing (let’s not let a good thing backfire on us for lack of planning) and plan and position accordingly.
There can certainly be other innovations within the time off benefit, but, even this is a lot, isn’t it Colleagues. What a challenge it is to attract and retain great team members in a world where what was once something appreciated has become something simply expected. But I’m here reminded of one of our long-standing beliefs at THRIVE, which is that challenge always equals opportunity. The two are always an equation. So as innovative thinkers, we ask ourselves the question that is the essence of thriving: What can and will we to win that others won’t? In the specific case of benefits, how can we innovate boldly to make ourselves the employer of choice, not just the employer. And whatever the answers, could we make it about doing joyfully what we do for our teams and team members, rather than being angry about demands of the times. If we can, I submit such mentality will be a key difference between surviving and thriving the post-pandemic new normal.
And of course there is the perfectly appropriate question of how much can we do and not break the bank doing it? I’ll trust your judgement on that one, with hope there’s some content here to help you answer the question. And whatever your answer(s), I’d love to challenge us all to implement in a right spirit… confident that what’s good for the team will be good for the practice.
Like all THRIVE content, the purpose of BOWEN’S BLOG and SUMMIT TALK Podlecture conversations is to keep us driving together toward IMPACT. If something here has struck a chord, shoot us an email or give us a call and let’s talk it out! Tbowen@mythrivecoaches.com or 402-794-4064.