Company Benefits: What’s Hot and What’s Not Across Different Generations
Written by Philip Omictin
One of the concurrent sessions during the 54th PMAP Annual Conference held last October 11 & 12, 2017 was “Company Benefits: What’s Hot and What’s Not Across Different Generations.” The discussion was led by Philip Gioca, country manager of JobStreet Philippines.
While we already expected the baby boomers (those born between 1945 to 1960) to look for retirement benefits or gratuity packages, Gen Zers (those born after 1995) are demanding more monetary rewards in their benefit packages. “You have to consider that (members of) this generation are starters. They wouldn’t be thinking of retirement plans, not even vacation leaves, but they would demand upfront for a large salary,” said Mr. Gioca.
The results are based on a compensation and benefits survey conducted by JobStreet for 2017. Respondents were asked to choose their 10 preferred benefits out of 32 provided options, which were clustered into four groups — leaves, health, work-life balance, and monetary.
When asked about what makes them happy with their jobs, baby boomers and Gen Xers (1961–1980) both preferred predictable work schedules. Millennials (1981–1985) and Gen Zers, on the other hand, are happy with good colleagues and convenient work locations. On the other side of the coin, what makes baby boomers and Gen Xers unhappy is the lack of career growth, while millennials and Gen Zers are unhappy with low salary and benefits.
From a commitment standpoint, Mr. Gioca explained that providing benefits like family care leave, birthday leave, flexible working hours, and parental leave will increase a company’s ability to retain its talents, especially Gen Xers, as most of them are parents with children still going to school.
In the end, companies should learn to customize their overall benefit packages based on these results. Different generations have different needs and priorities and so a company may want to explore offering a generation-based benefits system.
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About the author:
Philip is currently a managing consultant of the Executive Search and Selection Division of John Clements Consultants. Prior to joining John Clements, he worked for several companies like San Miguel Corporation, Petron, Smart Communications, and International SOS. He graduated from UP Diliman, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering. Outside of work, Philip is into music, basketball, and video games.
