Employee benefits that you are entitled to

Wrapping up with university is an emotional rollercoaster ride for most of us. You leave your comfort zone and step into a world with uncertainties. The competition in the real world is strife, and your best friends and mentors cannot guide you through what the world has to throw at you. These are things that you have to figure out for yourself. It is a phase that brings along with it excitements and adventures- of a new job, a chance to pursue your passion or perhaps to take up a new area of study in some other land altogether. Whatever the case might be, the end of University is just the beginning of new possibilities.

One of the most vital decisions that you will be making in this phase is that of a career. Once you crack an interview and decide on taking up a particular job, things might start falling in its place and make sense. However, getting through an interview and getting into a job is not quite about all. No matter how lucrative a job might look, there are things that you must investigate before you get yourself into your new-found work life.  We are talking about employee benefits and perks here. While you are still fresh out of University, you might be tempted to start early and take up the first job you get. This might be a great idea too. Experience is more important than anything. However, being an employee, you are entitled to certain perks, and it is always advisable to check whether the organisation you are joining into offers them to its employees.

What Are Employee Benefits?

Employee benefits are basically non-monetary perks that are provided to every employee in a concern as a part of their package. Employee benefits might vary from one organisation to the other, but the basic idea remains the same. Some of the most common employee benefits are paid leaves, sick leaves, casual leaves, maternity leaves, insurance policies, minimum wage, and workers compensation. Besides these, an employee might be entitled to several other benefits depending on the nature of the organisation. One might wonder what these non-monetary benefits would do to an employee’s contribution. To answer the question, in short, it increases an employee’s productivity, and studies corroborate the argument.  Employee benefits act like incentives that enable a higher work output. Human beings need to catch a break and enjoy a few other simple pleasures of life, and a salary that goes over six figures cannot compensate for that. Besides, they also need security in the form of insurance and the like from the employer’s end as a reassurance of an employee’s value and worth to the company. We shall now move on to discussing the minutiae of employee benefits.

Health Insurance Policies

It is an already established fact that health is more important than anything else on the planet. If you do not have yourself at the optimal health, your contribution to the organisation will take a backseat. Therefore, the onus to cater to an employee’s health benefits is upon the employer as well. Providing an employee with a health insurance policy is, thus, one of the most important benefits that an employee should be looking for before joining an organisation. For an organisation with at least 50 employees, provision of health insurance plans becomes a mandate. Health insurance plans are as important as life insurance plans. One caters to your health, and one caters to your life and the ones of your loved ones after your death. Ken Stephens explains in this article how life insurance works and how to go about it for anyone who wishes to find out more information about the same.

Leave Benefits

Now that we have covered the topic of health insurance in the section preceding this one, we shall now move on to discussing the types of leaves that an employee is entitled to. The number of leaves an employee is entitled to depend on the organisation and the rubrics it conforms to. However, an employee is typically allotted at least 10 paid leaves and several other sick leaves. Whether an employee is at liberty to carry forward those paid and sick leaves or not depends upon the nature and rules of the organisation. Another kind of leave that we absolutely need to discuss is maternity leave.

Maternity leaves are designed for the benefit of a pregnant employee and see to it that the employee is paid throughout the tenure of the leave. However, in order to be eligible for maternity leave, an employee must first check whether the organisation has the provision. Organisations need to fulfil several criteria before being eligible to provide maternity leave. One of the most important criteria is that of conforming to an employee headcount of 50. This count might vary from state to state and country to country. Also, to avail the provision of paid maternity leave, an employee must have served the organisation for at least 12 months and completed the number of hours as demanded by the company’s policy.

Benefits in Kind

Benefits in kind are the benefits like profit sharing, bonuses, stock options, housing and conveyance, and the like. Employees are entitled to share the company’s profit if they perform exceptionally well and prove to be of value to the company. Benefits in kind also include paid vacations, which is something of a welcome relief for employees. Besides paid leaves, maternity leaves and sick leaves, an organisation might even be generous enough to offer an employee vacation leaves and benefits. Some organisations pick the tab on an employee’s tickets and hotel reservations while some others do not. This provision entirely depends on how well-founded and generously led an organisation is, and the kind of human values it follows. Human beings need to blow off their steam once a while, and some organisations honour this aspect.

Conclusion

While the excitement of a first job might throw you in some sort of a frenzy, it is always advisable to run a background check on your organisation and look into all the employee benefits options that you are entitled to. Once you join a company, you become a part of it, and you have a fair share of responsibilities. It is a commitment for which you shall have to pour in most of your time and energy. Make sure that your worth is being recognised and your time is being invested decently.