'Ongoing monitoring ensures the benefits remain relevant,' says HR leader at Starbucks Canada
At Starbucks, employee feedback has the greatest influence on the benefits the company offers.
Through internal and external surveys, feedback channels, and data analysis, it works to understand their preferences for specific benefits, according to Laura Kean, director of total rewards at Starbucks Canada.
“This ongoing monitoring ensures the benefits remain relevant for the evolving needs of our partners and their families.”
As an example, the company’s "Bean Stock Grant” allows both full- and part-time employees to share in Starbucks success as part owners, fostering a sense of belonging and financial investment in the company, she says.
“With over 200,000 participants globally and a legacy since 1991, this program helps attract talent by offering a unique benefit and helps retain partners by building long-term financial ties.”
As part of its overall total rewards program, Starbucks Canada also offers — to all employees who work a minimum of 20 hours per week — extended health care, medical and dental plans, along with $25,000 in IVF treatment and $10,000 for medication, plus a maximum of $40,000 in benefits for intra-uterine inception (IUI) treatments, parental leave, and mental health care coverage of $5,000.
And yet many employers are failing when it comes to the effectiveness of their benefits, judging by a recent survey.
While more than half (54%) of Canadian employees say that benefits significantly influence their loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity, and one-third (35%) say they are willing to switch jobs for better financial benefits, even if it means accepting a lower base salary — only 29% of professionals are satisfied with their overall benefits packages.
An alarming 77% also say they are not fully using the perks on offer, found the Robert Walters survey.
Even more concerning? Almost three in four (72%) Canadian employers says they lack a clear understanding of which benefits their employees value most.
Range of benefits makes measurement challenging
The growing complexity of benefits offerings has made it difficult for organizations to measure the effectiveness of their programs, according to Martin Fox, managing director for Canada at Robert Walters.
“Benefits packages have become such a wide range of offerings now,” he says. “They can cover health insurance to retirement planning, there’s many wellness initiatives. The compensation aspect is a big one. So, I think it’s quite difficult for a lot of organizations to measure each of those components’ impacts now because they’re so wide.”
With trends and employee expectations constantly shifting, employers must take a proactive approach to maintaining relevant benefits, says Fox.
“It has to be constantly monitored. I think a lot of firms just put something in place and then ignore it, right? It’s quite a sticky thing, and I think that’s the wrong way to look at it.”
No differentiation with employee benefits
Tae-Youn Park, professor of management at the SKK Business School at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), says the root of the problem lies in how organizations approach benefits.
“Benefits are an idea [where] organizations can really strategically differentiate their values and are probably the least appreciated form of compensation,” he says.
Park highlights that benefits often constitute a significant portion of total compensation — about 30% — but organizations usually just offer similar benefits, such as retirement savings plans, healthcare options or leave policies.
“But because most of these things are done in a manner that just follows the industry standard, they are not really differentiating their values by using benefits,” he says.
When organizations have a clear goal about how they want to differentiate their benefits compared to others, they may have a clearer way to measure the effectiveness, says Park.
He uses Starbucks as an example, highlighting its tuition reimbursement, which targets people who want to gain barista experience but were hesitant “due to missing educational opportunities.”
The Bean Stock program also aligns retention incentives with long-term organizational performance, he says.
“Stock values are different from quarterly profit or annual profit in order to appreciate and then maximize values, so it’s better [for employees] to work for a while until they can actually get stock appreciation benefit out of it.”
Using feedback to inform offerings
Many organizations also lack the necessary data or tools to track and analyze the utilization of the benefits — and the satisfaction that they’re bringing, says Fox.
For employers seeking to align benefits with employee needs, he emphasizes the importance of regular feedback.
“I think those regular employee surveys are important, or polls, to gather feedback on current benefits and what employees would like to see added or improved, and these are all very anonymous.”
Starbucks tracks ROI by monitoring partner utilization rates and engagement scores that help drive the retention of employees, says Kean.
Fox also advocates for focus groups and employee committees to gain a deeper understanding of what different teams value in their benefits packages.
“It’s just about that open line of communication, maintaining that, and making employees feel that they can freely share their thoughts and suggestions,” he says.
Partnering with third-party providers can also help employers manage their plans more effectively and stay competitive in the market, says Fox.
“I think it’s really advantageous to have a third-party benefits provider or broker who can manage and administer your plan... They can give you a good idea of what the premiums look like, and if it is time to shop around,” he says, adding that such partnerships can help employers adjust their plans proactively.
Signalling values through employee benefits
While Park agrees that employee feedback is important, there are caveats.
“[Employers] do not want to listen to all the voices because you need to have a coherent set of benefit programs that offer specific signals or values to employees or potential employees… about what kind of people they want in their organization.”
For example, employers that offer LGBTQ-related benefits or IVF-related benefits are “signalling values,” he says.
And that’s why it’s not just about the return on investment, says Park, who is also director of research at the Institute for Compensation Studies at the ILR School at Cornell University.
“You should consider keeping other benefits, even if they yield less ROI, if that has a signal value to employees. And they can be real differentiators too… if your organization is offering it, that will be having employer brand recognition values.”
Customizing perks
Another potential solution to employee dissatisfaction is offering customized benefits.
“We see the more innovative employers now offering customizable benefits that allow employees to choose options that best suit their personal and family needs — almost like an a la carte-type play here,” Fox says.
While this approach can be more costly and complex to administer, he says, it offers significant advantages, particularly for larger firms with sufficient scale.
A recent example of direct employee feedback in action at Starbucks was the launch of the Partner Choice Program for eligible employees, who can choose a Health Spending Account (HSA) or Personal Wellness Account (PWA), says Kean.
“[These] have an annual set amount of funds that can be put toward a variety of out-of-pocket expenses such as medical expenses, services related to name and gender marker changes for transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming partners, commuting and even childcare.”
Downsides to customization
While flexible benefits can help address diverse employee needs, Park cautions against excessive complexity.
“When organizations customize, sometimes employees have to contact a different vendor to use that benefit, rather than the HR department of their company... and they have their own rules and regulation about what is reimbursed and what is not… and all of that is certainly annoying,” he says.
Park also warns against overwhelming employees with too many options, comparing the experience to shopping at Costco versus Walmart.
“You go to Walmart because there is a ton of options. Some are good, some are not good… you go to Costco and they have a very limited set of products and goods, but you can be assured that a certain quality will be met,” he says.
“Oftentimes, people don't know what they want. So, sometimes having a good set of benefits and have them choose out of it can be a better way than just offering too many benefits.”
Communicate, communicate, communicate
One of the most significant barriers to effective benefits utilization is poor communication. According to the Robert Walters survey, only 51% of professionals are satisfied with how their benefits are communicated, leaving nearly half unclear about what’s available to them.
“The semantics need to change around what a benefit is, and that it’s actually encompassing pretty much everything that is on offer,” says Fox, suggesting that employers make benefits more “digestible.”
That can involve one-page flyers or town hall presentations where HR teams outline available perks, he says.
“That could also spark the conversation of, ‘Oh yes, this is what we have. Well, you know what? Actually, I would like more of this or that.’”
Starbucks Canada ensures partners are informed through regular internal communications, benefit guides, and dedicated platforms, such as a Starbucks Partner App for retail employees, says Kean.
“Managers also play a role in reinforcing this knowledge by educating team members during onboarding, team meetings, and rewards conversations.”
Park emphasizes the importance of clear and accessible communication, particularly using visual tools.
“Many people are visual learners... giving numbers or graphics will be one way [to help],” he says. For example, retirement plans could be presented with bar graphs showing how investments grow over time, so employees can make informed decisions.
Organizations should also invest in user-friendly platforms that allow employees to explore their benefits options with minimal effort, he says.
“With a few clicks, they can see what their current usage of a benefit is like and what other options they can have.”
