U.S. employers strongly reaffirmed the importance of retirement benefits in SHRM’s latest Employee Benefits Survey, released June 12.
While the new survey found healthcare unsurprisingly emerged as the most important type of benefit that an organization can offer its workers, retirement benefits saw a big jump from the 2020/2021 survey to rank as the second-most important type of benefit along with leave benefits.
Retirement benefits were cited as important by 55% of employers in the previous survey, but that percentage soared back near historical norms at 82% in the 2022 survey—a 27% increase.
The report said although the importance ratings of many benefits changed drastically during the height of the pandemic, now that businesses have regained a more normal semblance of operations, so too have businesses ranked benefits in a more typical order of importance.
“Although this order of importance is back to what was typically seen prior to the pandemic, it is key to note that all benefits are now individually viewed as more important for businesses to offer than they were prior to the pandemic,” SHRM said in a statement about the report. “The pandemic’s impact on the world of work appears to have resulted in lasting changes of the views around specific benefits offerings.”
Additional findings
In 2022, the survey found most employers offered some type of retirement savings plan to their employees, with 94% offering a traditional 401k and 68% offering a Roth 401k. In the 2019 SHRM survey, 93% said they offer a traditional 401k and 59% said they offered a Roth 401k. In 2015, just 48% offered a Roth 401k.
Many of those employers also provided some type of employer match to those retirement plans, with 83% contributing to traditional 401k plans and 76% contributing to Roth 401k plans.
On average, employers provided a maximum percentage salary match of 6.8% for traditional 401k plans and 6.7% for Roth 401k plans
On average, employers provided a maximum percentage salary match of 6.8% for traditional 401k plans and 6.7% for Roth 401k plans.
Just over half (51%) of organizations said they automatically enroll new or existing employees in their company’s retirement plan—a figure that has held steady since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nearly all organizations (98%) said they offer some type of health coverage, with three-quarters (72%) of organizations saying they offer a fully insured health plan and 26% saying they offer a self-insured plan.
Medical flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) continued to be the most popular type of health-related spending accounts, with 63% and 57% of employers offering them, respectively.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of organizations that offer an HSA said they make employer contributions to these plans, which is the lowest prevalence since 2018, when 64% said they offered this benefit.
The 2022 SHRM Employee Benefits Survey was conducted from January 11 to February 28, 2022. Online surveys were sent to U.S. based professional members of SHRM, which yielded eligible responses from 3,129 participants representing independent organizations. Respondents were asked to provide answers regarding what employee benefits their organizations offered during plan year 2022.
SEE ALSO:
• Pandemic Made Benefits a Top Priority of Small Biz Owners
• Inside the Post-Pandemic Retirement Benefits Landscape for Small Businesses
Veteran financial services industry journalist Brian Anderson joined 401(k) Specialist as Managing Editor in January 2019. He has led editorial content for a variety of well-known properties including Insurance Forums, Life Insurance Selling, National Underwriter Life & Health, and Senior Market Advisor. He has always maintained a focus on providing readers with timely, useful information intended to help them build their business.
