An increasing number of companies is recognising the value of their employees and collaborators, providing benefits and services with the aim of improving the quality and well-being of their lives and that of their families. We are talking about corporate welfare, literally about corporate well-being.
By rewarding the workers’ productivity, corporate welfare enables the development of a positive working environment and favours the creation of a trustworthy relationship between the company and its employees. Other consequential effects include the reduction of employee turnover, absenteeism and work stress.
The adoption of Corporate Welfare within organisations benefits both the company and the employees. On the one hand, motivation and satisfaction significantly increase through the creation of organisations well-being. On the other hand, brand reputation and brand image are strengthened and consolidated, which in turn allows to retain and attract talent.
The considerable advantage of lightening the tax burden for companies is undeniable, alongside performance and business results.
An essential requirement for the non-taxability of the sums appointed to a welfare plan is their assignment to homogeneous categories of employees, e.g. those who share headquarters or office, who have the same contractual level or social, personal and organisational necessities.
TYPES OF BENEFITS
Each company provides different benefits among very different categories. Generally, the worker can freely choose the goods and services that best meet his needs since he is assigned a budget that he can manage autonomously.
A few examples of welfare plans:
Health: healthcare expenses refund or agreements with private structures and specialists.
Assistance: healthcare assistants to deal with the care of an elderly or non self-sufficient family member. Insurance on the risk of non self-sufficiency and serious illness and provision of vouchers for the payment of a babysitter.
Education: payment for daycare, canteens, university fees, textbooks, summer camps and trips, but also the employee's professional and personal training.
Pension provision: possibility to allocate part or all of the employee’s welfare account as a supplement to the social security contribution paid to the pension fund.
Leisure and well-being: offers related to sport, self-care, travel and culture.
Purchase vouchers: food, shopping and fuel vouchers.
FUTURE PROSPECTS
In a world that is understanding that people work to live and not the other way around, companies are moving in different directions, the main ones are:
- The design of digital platforms for the management of the welfare services provided;
- The expansion of services that can be used outside the work context;
- The introduction of territorial or company agreements to convert the production premium into flexible benefit services.
It is true that the verb to work, from the Latin laborare, means to struggle. However, if the employee wakes up smiling every day, with the right spirit, aware that he’s working in an environment which nurtures him as a human being, he will probably work with greater pleasure and flexibility, always returning a greater value to the company.
