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A solid benefits plan makes a great addition to an employee compensation package. With the Chambers Plan your business can recruit the high-quality talent you need to compete. Whether your business has 1 or 100 employees you have just as great a need to attract and retain talent as a larger corporation. Their employee group benefits plan can provide you with options that will allow your business to compete with anyone for those employees.
Protecting your staff shows them you care. It improves your staff retention, makes it easier to hire new employees and makes your workforce happier and more productive with less absenteeism. The advantages of providing protection over not doing so are numerous. In fact, when workers are polled about either having a benefits plan or a $10,000 raise, the majority took the benefits option. In addition, it’s a great area to enhance compensation since health and dental premiums are not taxable benefits though are deductible for the employer. It may cost a lot less after tax than implementing a raise or bonus for both the employee and the employer.
With more than 35,000 firms insured, the Chambers Plan has become a place for SME’s to come for wellness and benefits plan support. Combined with their partnership with local Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade there are many tools and resources available to help improve your workplace satisfaction. A Chambers Plan advisor can help you customize this to your staff, keeping in mind an older demographic consisting of Baby Boomers will have a different perspective than a younger firm composed mostly of Millennials.
Whether you have 1 or 100 employees the Chambers Plan can build an offering that meets your needs. If you have a plan an advisor can easily match up an offering or build something different based on your firms needs. Plans can be designed with different categories if necessary for different staffing levels. In addition, the Chambers Plan also provides the BAS, or Business Assistance Service to all plan holders. This is invaluable to small to medium sized enterprises providing HR, Accounting and Legal assistance as part of the underlying program. All employees also receive the Best Doctors program. This can allow an employee to find access to specialists or get a second opinion on either a diagnosis or course of treatment.
The Chambers Plan also provides the best in class out-of-country protection which can be particularly important if you need to travel for your new business. If you and your staff must travel often this can save you significantly rather than buying travel protection for each trip.
Other benefits can be sculpted based on budgets. Costs for things such as paramedical benefits for physiotherapy, chiropractor and massage therapists etc., can be capped or limited to provide budget control. Dental coverage can also be tailored to the company budget as well as the needs of the staff. Drug coverage is another area where a variety of options will meet a variety of budgets. Benefits today are no longer a one size fits all product. Firms with younger demographics may prefer more wellness-related benefits such as paramedicals with less drug coverage, while an older staff may prefer having the scripts in place.
The Chambers Plan has a group retirement option with both a Group RRSP and a DPSP (Deferred Profit-Sharing Plan) and can also help you with either your individual or your employee’s retirement options. There is a payroll solution provided by Payworks; when used in conjunction with the plan it offers single entry in one system for both your payroll and benefits through their proprietary Tandem link.
By providing benefits employers reap many other positive rewards. An EAP, or Employee Assistance Program is a perfect example. Typically a low-cost item, an employer may add it to their benefits plan to provide counselling for employees who may need a little help from time to time. An employee may have a spouse or dependent child who needs counselling and because it is now available the employee will not be focusing on that issue at working, making them a more positive, productive employee.
More traditional benefits are helpful in many ways. An employee with a tooth that’s bothering them or out of date glasses can improve their well-being by having those things looked after. Their homelife may improve if their dependents can also have the ability to update any issues they have.
Prescription drugs are an even larger issue. Today with the spiraling cost of drugs, knowing you have some coverage means that if a family member needs a script they can obtain it and follow the proper course of treatment. Without coverage drug adherence levels slip and people are less likely to get or maintain the treatments they may need for their own individual situations.
Learn about the Chambers of Commerce Group Benefits Plan here.
