COMP NEWS – New data regarding preferred employee benefits is shining a light on an area of dissatisfaction; women in the workplace feel like their employers don’t offer the benefits they actually want.

It’s not enough to offer employee benefits. Companies must provide benefits that employees actually value. That might sound obvious, yet employers continue to miss the mark in offering benefits their female employees actually want, according to a survey of more than 1,100 employed U.S. adults conducted by Verizon and business intelligence company Morning Consult.

 

Eighty-six percent of surveyed women cited flexible work as the top benefit that is “very” or “somewhat” important to them, followed by health and wellness programs and mental health resources, both chosen by 84% of respondents.

 

However, just 58% of women surveyed say their employer allows flexible work hours, 50% say their company offers health and wellness benefit programs, and only 41% report the same for mental health resources.

 

For every perk women say is important to them, the research found at least a 25 percentage-point gap in the share of employers offering that benefit. Unpaid leave programs made up the smallest contrast, with 67% of women surveyed saying it’s important to them, compared to 42% saying their employers offered it. Childcare services made up the largest gap, with 68% of women surveyed saying that support is important but only 21% reporting that their company provides it—a difference of 47 percentage points.

To read more about the benefits women actually want in the workplace, click here.

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