The Sustainable Workforce Report: Choosing the best employee benefits to attract and retain top talent

We’re obsessed with what makes workplaces and employees tick. So much so that we’ve been getting stuck into research to find out what employees really want from their employers in 2023, and what employers need to do to appeal to the current workforce. So we’re very happy to introduce the Sustainable Workforce Report, a deep dive into the role of employee benefits for attracting and retaining top talent.

We've asked over 500 UK HR managers about the role of employee benefits in their organisations, and compared this information with the results of over 2,000 UK employees who share their expectations and wants from employee benefits.

Read on for the background behind our research, or download the full report above to get stuck into the research.

We’re currently living a unique period of time where the ‘Great Resignation’ meets the cost of living crisis, plus we’re facing the tightest labour market we’ve seen since the mid 2000’s. In the Sustainable Workforce Report, we look at how organisations can link their sustainability strategies with improving recruitment and retention of top talent through strategic use of employee benefits.

The Sustainable Workforce Report helps organisations understand what their teams want as part of their employee benefits package, and support them in evaluating their current suite of benefits.

• The great resignation and the impact on recruitment and retention
• The role of employee engagement during uncertain times, and
• How to engage your employees with an appealing benefits package

• What do employees need from their employer during the cost of living crisis?
• What benefits do employees value and how do benefits impact their decision to join, and remain with, an employer?
• How comfortable are employees with asking their employer for the benefits they want? And what are the best ways we can facilitate communication between employer and employee?
• How important is sustainability to today’s workforce?
• What are the tactics that employers need to consider for recruitment and retention of talent in the near future?

• More than half of employees (59%) are more likely to join or stay with an organisation if they have a comprehensive benefits package on offer.
• Employers are more likely to put an employee benefit in place if it was requested by their team, but more than half of employees (51%) don’t feel comfortable asking their employer for the benefits they want.
• More than a third of employees don’t see the value in the current benefits package on offer by their employer, with a majority having never used them, while the rest don’t know what’s available.
• A third (33%) of employees have never been asked for feedback on the employee benefits available to them, and nearly half get asked for feedback on benefits just once a year or less.

• Most employees (70%) now expect their employers, or potential employers, to be proactively working towards clear environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals as this is a deciding factor in recruitment and retention.
• Employees want financial support from their employers that goes beyond their monthly pay. An overwhelming majority (73%) want cash saving benefits that they can access through their employer.
• Most employees (61%) want to make the switch to an electric vehicle (EV) for their next car but price is a key factor for most (78%).
• The overwhelming majority of employees (74%) said they'd want their employer to offer an EV salary sacrifice scheme when they were shown what was included.