The New Year is a time for fresh starts and will find many of your employees making plans to save more, eat better, and improve their health by working out. Some will even make goals to help the environment by lowering their carbon footprint.
What if we told you that, as their employer, you could help them reach these goals? And in doing so, save both them and you money on taxes, strengthen your employee’s productivity, and decrease time missed from work.
Well, it’s 100% possible!
We’re going to introduce you to four simple, but powerful benefits, that you could have up and running in time for the new year.
Commuter benefits
You save, employees save, everyone saves on taxes with this special, easy to implement benefit!
The average commuter spends $8,466 to get to and from work each year, and 85% of them are using a personal vehicle to do so. That expense is a “pain in the wallet” no matter how you spin it.
Providing commuter benefits is the best way to cut down the cost of getting to work – and to encourage the use of public transportation.
Here’s how it works…
- It’s a pre-tax benefit. Your employee can choose to set aside a max of $300 in pre-tax dollars each and every month starting on January 1st, 2023, to spend on public transportation. As a bonus, neither you nor your employee have to pay taxes on these allotted funds.
- The employee saves. Because the money set aside is “pre-tax” your employees can save an average of $700 per year. This is money they can choose to save or use on important expenses like food and healthcare.
- Your company saves. Again, because this benefit is “pre-tax” your company can save up to 7.65% on payroll taxes. That adds up to an average of $40 per employee. So, if you have a team of 50, you could be looking at over $24,000 in savings every year. That’s incredible.
- More options than the train. When it comes to public transportation, there are more options than you might think. The IRS says you can use that $300 to take the bus, light rail, the subway, a commuter train, streetcars, trolleys, cable cars, vanpool services, ferries, water taxis, monorails, tramways, and even Lyft-Shared. The bonus? You can use it to pay for parking fees.
- Easy to implement. There are no complicated forms to fill, so you can get started immediately. Better yet, your employees can make purchases on a prepaid card and employers can control the program online.
AnytimePay
Never wait for payday again! Your employees can access “money earned” when they need it most.
Twenty Five percent of Americans have exactly zero in their savings, and 49% have less than $400 ready to cover an emergency.
So, when your washer breaks down, your dog needs to visit the vet, or your kid breaks their arm because they decided to climb a tree, what do you do?
AnytimePay is the solution. It’s a fair and smart way to make money available to your employees now when they need it.
- Money when you need it. Traditionally, your employee gets paid every two weeks. With AnytimePay, they can access their money as they earn it. They are paid no more or no less than they would be paid usually. They simply have access to the money as they earn it.
- Great for emergencies. Let’s say it’s winter and the heater goes out. This is a problem that needs to be fixed immediately, but if you aren’t going to be paid for another 10 days, it could be a real problem. Let’s assume it’s 4 days into the new pay period, and your employee earns $6,000 a month. This breaks down to $300 a day (meaning they’ve earned $1,200 so far). With AnytimePay they can access that $1,200 to repair the heater. They’ll then receive the remainder of their earned funds on the regularly scheduled payday.
- Good for mental health & productivity. Unexpected expenses cause great mental strain. And with 550 million working days being lost to stress-related absenteeism every year, granting your employees to AnytimePay just makes sense.
- Gives your company an edge. Seventy nine percent of job-hunters say programs like AnytimePay would make it more likely they’d apply at your place of business. If you’re a smaller or medium sized company, this gives you the edge you need to compete with the larger employers in your area. At Edenred, we make it easy to implement a compliant and easy-to-run program.
Ticket Restaurant
Happy, full, and productive! Make sure your employees never skip a meal again by providing a daily meal allowance.
Inflation may be waning slightly, but it will be a while before it grants us the reprieve we need. As it stands, 31% of households have skipped meals in the last 12 months and 39% are buying fewer groceries. We all know we need food to live, so this is a real problem.
A great way to address hunger in the workplace and improve productivity and retention is through a daily meal stipend aka Ticket Restaurant.
- More creativity & fewer sick days. In a study conducted by Columbia University’s School of Business and the National Bureau for Economic Research, it was found that people who had just eaten a meal were up to 25% more creative than those who hadn’t. While employees who weren’t getting the nutrition they needed were 65.9% more likely to miss work. It’s obvious, access to food will have a big impact on your workplace.
- Flexibility of use. Employees can choose to use their meal stipend to pay for breakfast, lunch, or dinner at local eateries, restaurants, food trucks, grocery stores, and for food delivery through all the popular apps.
- You’re in control. Whether you choose to allot $5, $15, or $20 a day towards employee meals, the benefits to your employees are obvious. And at Edenred, we make it easy by offering your employees a prepaid card that you program. You simply choose where it can be used, and we do the rest.
Lifestyle Spending Accounts
The most versatile of benefits! Lifestyle Spending Accounts empower your employees to hit the gym, further their education, and more.
If you’re looking to attract top talent and create satisfaction for your current workforce, Lifestyle Spending Accounts will be an asset to you. Not only do 60% of applicants seek out jobs that offer these benefits, but 80% say they’d prefer ‘more benefits’ over a raise.
- Incredible range. This being the most flexible of benefits, you could choose to offer your employees the programs they want to use.
- Complete customization. At Edenred, we make it easy to customize your Lifestyle Spending Accounts program. For example, you can either choose which benefits you want to offer employees based on your company’s values, or let your employees pick the benefits that fit them best. Once that’s done, you can either offer a prepaid card or choose to have your employees submit claims for reimbursement. The best part? We process and approve the claims for you based on your pre-determined parameters. One less thing on your plate!
Your everyday companion at work
At Edenred, we operate in 45 countries and serve 10,000 employers representing 10 million eligible employees. But even at that scale, our primary goal remains simple. We want to help you attract and retain a healthy and productive workforce through the creation of simple, but incredible, benefit programs.
Whether you are a company of 20 or 2,000, we can help you create and run a benefits program that works for you! And we’d love to talk to you about it. Schedule a meeting with us today so we can help you find the programs you’re looking for.
