The opportunity to work remotely has become the most popular bonus offered by employers, overtaking health insurance, Anta Pranevica, a member of the board and senior consultant at research and management consulting company Figure Baltic Advisory, told LETA in an interview.
“The possibility to work remotely for employees whose work allows it is offered by 96 percent of companies, while health insurance was offered by 93 percent last year. This means that the option to work remotely has become the most popular benefit offered by employers,” said Pranevica.
She pointed out that employees also demand and expect this option and are very surprised if it does not exist. It has become the new norm for office workers.
Asked about the practice in many companies of requiring all employees to be present on certain days of the week, Pranevica said that if an employer sets very specific days to work in person without considering the specifics of each job, this can rather become a barrier. However, research shows that most employers do consider this aspect, and the fixed days for face-to-face work are more likely to be introduced for social reasons, as the pandemic has shown that when working completely remotely, the sense of team, the attachment to the company is lost, and the exchange of ideas is not as fast, efficient and creative as when people meet face-to-face.
At the same time, the expert acknowledged that organizing work processes when employees work remotely can still be a challenge.
“Managers are not always given the ideas or developed the skills to manage a team remotely, rather than sitting behind their back all the time, looking over their shoulder and therefore micromanaging. Micromanagement does not work remotely and therefore a different management style has to be learned, employees have to be evaluated by results and not by hours spent at work,” said Pranevica.
Employers’ policies on purchasing health insurance policies for employees have changed, with a consequent increase in prices. Whereas health insurance in the workplace was previously considered almost a compulsory bonus, there are now employers who have opted out, for example by choosing to pay employees a premium equal to the value of the previous policy rather than buying a new policy that became more expensive and covered fewer services.
“At the same time, because medical services became more expensive, employees directly started to appreciate more the health insurance policy being offered,” said Pranevica.
As for other benefits appreciated by employees, Pranevica said that employee events, from Christmas parties to sports games, coffee and water in the office, benefits for various occasions, gifts at Christmas and also on birthdays are consistently popular.
In terms of work-life balance, paid additional leave emerges as one of the most popular benefits, as well as flexible working hours.
Source: BNS
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