Employee Benefits Essay

Employee benefits refer to any form of compensation provided by the organization other than wages or salaries that are paid for in whole or in part by the employer. Employee benefit has become a major component of employee compensation that can even determine whether an employee will take a particular job and remain in it or not (Amah, 2006). There has been a reduction in the benefits offered employees in recent times because of the hard economic times. This has not augured well with employees who always want more. Such benefits have a way of motivating employees to be more productive (Flynn, 1988). Organizations can only survive when employees are performing their duties as at when due.
Employee benefits and organizational survival have received a significant worth in studies being carried on in different work settings. (Bernstein, 1955, Gross, 1968, Lawler 1981, 1990, Denison, 1990, Lawler and Jenkins 1992, Mindy, 1998, Oshagbemi 2000, Brabeck2002, Grimshaw et al,

Benefits, however, are not just to serve the employee but also benefit the management in a long term. Jerrell (1997) found that few individual employers saw the need to address issues related to employee benefits. Positive feelings created by good benefits may help to change workers to be more hard working. This will eventually results in low turnover, and creating the employees performance. According to Chao et al., (1994), there are three objectives of benefit programmes. The first is to meet the lowest physical and psychological demands of employees so that they could fully engage themselves in work. The second is to compete with other corporations at an equal level. When similar employee benefits are adopted by competitors, it is necessary to offer the same level of benefit programme in order to maintain competitiveness. The third objective is to provide social and welfare