A Discussion of Non-monetary Benefits
OL342 Organizational Behavior
In today’s workplace benefits are playing a major factor in not only the morale of the workforce but also in the hiring and retention of employees as well. Companies that have a substandard benefit package will not be able to retain or hire trained employees as they have to compete against companies with better packages. As it is not always easy to raise salaries some employers have looked at including more non-monetary benefits. That is benefits that employees may not notice in their paychecks. These are the type of benefits that I would like to explore in this paper.
I think a major misconception that some employees have about benefits is what they think should be thought of as a non-monetary benefit. I have heard comments asking why they could not receive another ten days of vacation as they thought that this is a non-monetary benefit. Contrary to some vacation is indeed a monetary benefit, as the company in its finances needs to consider that as a salary expense. In Massachusetts employers are required to pay employees the equivalent amount of their remaining vacation time if they leave the company. For this reason companies must keep that amount on the books as an expense. The same can be said about other types of programs such as education reimbursement or health coverage, commuter rail passes, etc. These all have a monetary expense associated with them.
Ok, so what is a company going to do? What is the purpose of a non-monetary incentive? According to Ballentine, Kepner, McKenzie, and Wysocki (2007), “the purpose of non-monetary incentives is to reward associates for excellent job performance through opportunities.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Basically put what will reward an employee that doesn’t necessarily cost the company money?
One way this can happen is by allowing employees to work flex hours. Matt Williamson (2006) states, “This, to some, is considered the most important...