Creating A Competitive Employee Benefits Package In a Global Market

Employees have never had more choice over where and how they work. In a global talent market, salary alone is rarely enough to attract and retain top performers. The companies winning the war for talent are increasingly those offering benefits that support employees’ health, well-being, financial security and quality of life.

But when it comes to building this benefits package, what does good actually look like?

Do your benefits meet your employees’ expectations?

According to research from Willis Towers Watson:

37% of employees say employee benefits attracted them to their current jobs
44% say they would stay in their current job to keep their benefits
39% would leave their job if they were offered better benefits elsewhere

Knowing this, many companies have started to become highly competitive about their employee benefits. In their 2025 Benefits Trends Survey, Willis Towers Watson found that staying competitive in the war for talent was one of the top motivators for employers when it came to shaping their employee benefits strategy, with 56% calling it a top priority.

But, in the same year, a survey of 1,000 British companies by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found expectations weren’t quite living up to reality.

22% of their respondents admitted to having no clear objectives when it came to offering employee benefits, while a further 15% do not track the effectiveness of their employee benefits.

Perhaps the most concerning discovery was the clear mismatch between the benefits companies were offering versus those that employees are increasingly expecting.

The most common employee benefits

Free drinks and snacks

50%

Free or subsidised social events

49%

Flexible working (including remote working, job-sharing and compressed working weeks)

40%

Bonuses and seasonal perks

34%

Boosted workplace pension scheme

29%

Paid leave for jury service

28%

Bereavement leave

27%

On-site parking (free or subsidised)

25%

Conference attendance

24%

Professional subscriptions

23%

Subsidised education and training course fees

21%

Training and career development

18%

Private medical/health insurance

18%

Occupational sick pay

18%

CIPD Reward Survey – February 2026

However, in a separate survey, one HR company listed the top five benefits employees were asking for as:

Unlimited annual leave: 31% of employees said they would like their company to offer unlimited time off, even if it was unpaid, showing that work-life balance is still top of employees’ list of priorities in 2026.
Increased pension contributions: At the same time, employees are also thinking about the future. 31% said that they would like their employers to contribute more than the statutory requirement to their pensions or 401ks.
Private medical insurance: While only 18% of companies offer it, 30% of employees want their companies to support their health with private health insurance. This is especially true with female employees and those over 55.
Hybrid working: Hybrid working has become the norm around the world, yet some companies have not adapted as well as others. 40% of companies offer it, while elsewhere 22% of employees are still seeking it.
Well-being perks: As people become more mindful about their well-being, employees are asking their employers to contribute. 21% said they want their employers to support their well-being outside of work.

What does this tell us?

There may be a considerable gap between the benefits employees are seeking, and what companies are offering.

While employees have a strong appetite for perks that support their health, well-being, long-term security and work-life balance – in other words, their lives outside of work – companies are still mainly providing perks that focus on company culture and their employees’ lives inside work (such as company events, conference attendance, on-site parking etc).

The source of the mismatch seems to be in that statistic we mentioned earlier – that over a fifth of companies are providing employee benefits without a clear strategy.

And it’s in this particular statistic that we uncover a key learning: companies need to shape their employee benefits strategies around their employees needs and demands, especially if they want to be seen as competitive.

What are the best employee benefits to offer your team?

Here’s our pick of the best employee perks and benefits

How to be strategic when it comes to employee benefits

Providing the best employee benefits is not as simple as throwing money at the problem. Just because an employee benefit seems flashy and expensive does not necessarily mean it will be better for your employees.

Nor should you treat employee benefits as one-offs. Pizza parties, staff days out and gift cards may be well received at the time, but are quickly forgotten – and may not help you to attract or retain talent in the long-run.

Another critical mistake is using employee benefits as a way to show appreciation. Employee benefits are not just there to say ‘thanks for your hard work’. Rather, they should provide a vital bedrock upon which your employees can build their working lives: healthy, safe and cared-for employees are better motivated employees, after all.

With that in mind, when it comes to forming a strategy for your employee benefits, here are five questions you should be asking:

1/ Does this make my employee’s life easier?

A great employee benefit should remove a little bit of stress from your employee’s life and help them to focus on what’s meaningful: whether that’s work, family life, hobbies or anything in-between. Studies have found employees are up to three times more motivated when they feel supported at work, with motivated employees 56% less likely to leave a role and 41% less likely to take sick leave.

2/ Does this support my employees outside of work too?

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking ‘if I can’t see the benefits, they’re not working.’ Just because a benefit isn’t visible in the workplace doesn’t mean your employee isn’t benefitting. If it helps to fix stress in their life outside the office, those benefits will prove their worth when your employee comes to work. This is where benefits like health, well-being and personal safety become important.

3/ Are these benefits easy for my employee to use?

One common mistake employers make when putting together benefits packages is that they choose services their employees don’t know how to use. Health insurance is a great benefit, but if your service is tied to one healthcare provider, your employee may never get to utilise their insurance (that could explain why, in the UK, around a third of employees don’t use their health insurance benefits). Not only should you make sure your benefits are relevant to your employees’ needs, make sure your providers are flexible.

4/ What do my competitors offer (and how can I beat them)?

When shopping for benefits, pay attention to your competitors’ job advertisements. These often reveal some of the benefits other companies are offering. To be competitive, you’ll want to not only match them, but beat them. Try finding those little opportunities for optimisation: if your competitor offers dental insurance, you could offer full health insurance.

5/ How do I communicate these benefits effectively?

Just because you’ve put together a great benefits package doesn’t mean your job is done. When rolling out your new perks, it’s crucial to communicate with your employees. Research has shown that as many as 61% of employees do not fully understand their employee benefits. Make sure you’re communicating not just what the benefits are, but how they’re intended to support your employees, and how employees can access these perks. Benefits information should also be easy to find after launch, whether through your intranet, internal communications, manager briefings or other employee touchpoints. If you’re stuck, speak to your benefits provider: they might have template communications packages that could help.

Why are employee benefits so important?

Here’s how they could help your business as well as your employees

What else do you need to consider?

Of course, it’s not as simple as just choosing the best benefits on the market.

When you’re competing in a global job market and working with international employees, it’s also important to think about three additional factors:

Compliance
Global reach
Flexibility

Let’s break down what we mean by these factors:

1/ Compliance

What works in one job market may not work in another. For instance, you may discover a competitive health insurance provider in the UK, but this coverage may not support your employees in Dubai. This could be true for other forms of perks that have a local connection including gym memberships, discounts at high-street retailers, cycle-to-work schemes and so on.

That’s saying nothing of the regulatory and compliance risks you might face. Remember, every country has a different set of laws for companies when it comes to their employees. Your business may include things like bereavement leave, paternity leave, pension contributions and sickness leave under ‘perks’, but in many countries these things are mandated by law.

One way employers get around the complexities of compliance is by always aiming for the standard of universal best practice. In other words, finding the best policy from the countries they operate in, and making this a global standard across the company. Put it this way: if your employees in France receive four weeks paternity leave by law, why shouldn’t your employees in the United States get the same allowance?

2/ Global reach

If your employees live or regularly travel abroad, can you be sure their benefits will travel with them? This is an important question to ask, as your overseas employees may experience disruption to their lives simply by taking a business trip – and the experience could be much worse if they move to work for an overseas branch of your company.

Therefore, when choosing benefits for your company, it’s worth checking to see if those benefits have global reach and meet the needs of employees across different countries, cultures and ways of working. If your company’s health insurance scheme is only available in one country, for instance, it won’t be able to support your employees when they travel abroad for a business trip – and for employees who are asked to move abroad, you will need to find them a different supplier in a foreign country.

The alternative is to choose a health insurance provider that offers global coverage. The same principle may apply for many other types of perk: for instance, does your company life insurance policy cover your employees worldwide, or only in their home country?

Local vs global health insurance – what’s the difference?

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3/ Flexibility

The final thing to think about is whether or not your benefits give your company the flexibility you need. Flexibility is an important topic when it comes to employee benefits, as your company may need to think about questions like these:

Can I offer a higher standard of the same benefit to high-ranking executives in my company?
Can I save money by only offering certain benefits (such as maternity cover) to the people who actually need it?
Am I free to set the terms of the benefits I offer employees, rather than choosing a one-size-fits-all model?

If you’re working with benefits providers who offer very little flexibility, you may end up paying more while not getting the standard of benefits you wanted.

At the same time, it’s also important to think about flexibility from your employees’ perspectives. They might have questions too, such as:

Can I choose to upgrade my benefits if I want to get more out of them?
Am I free to share my benefits with my family?
Can I use my benefits in a way that works for me and fits with my lifestyle?

When it comes to choosing your employee benefits package, it pays to interrogate your benefits providers. You’ll want to be sure your benefits work for both your company and its employees – that means getting the right benefits with the right coverage, and the right flexibility, at the right price.

Choosing employee benefits is an important investment. Ask questions, compare providers and understand the details before making your decision.

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What mistakes should you avoid?

We’ve talked about some of the things you might want to do, but what should you probably steer away from?

Some of the common mistakes we see employers make when it comes to choosing their employee benefits include:

Filling the gap by adding more benefits

Sometimes, an employer may see that their employees aren’t interacting with their benefits as much as they’d hoped. In these cases, the employer could be tempted to start adding new benefits to their package. However, this is rarely the right answer – instead, it ends up costing the company more, while engagement remains low.

Don’t be tempted to add more benefits when communicating more about your current benefits may do the trick. If you’re happy with your benefits package but worried people aren’t getting the most from them, try sending your staff a monthly newsletter reminding them about their benefits, how to use them, and how they could benefit from them.

Confusing lifestyle with quality of life

Some perks can actually help your employees enjoy a good lifestyle: cinema vouchers, discounts at restaurants and free coffees, for instance. These benefits can help your employees make the most of their time outside of work.

But they are not to be confused with benefits that actually improve their quality of life, such as: financial education, gym memberships and access to high-quality healthcare. These benefits could help your employees to live longer, healthier, happier lives.

Some benefits are great for cheering your employees up and helping them feel appreciated. Others will help them to build their lives as they grow alongside your company. Be mindful of this when choosing your benefits package, and try to find the right balance for your employees and their families.

**Thinking too globally**

We mentioned earlier that it’s a good thing to think about benefits from a big-picture point of view, but don’t overdo it – you could run the risk of choosing benefits that ignore the local perspective.

Wherever your employees live, it’s likely they’ll want benefits that fit around their day-to-day lives. If your benefits are too global, they may not be any benefit to certain employees. For instance, if you offer discounts at a certain restaurant, this may not be any good for employees who don’t live near this restaurant.

The same is true for healthcare: you may choose a popular healthcare provider for your company health insurance, but can you be sure every employee lives close enough to access their network of doctors and facilities?

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Striking the right balance

Ultimately, the best way to stay competitive in a global job market is to provide the right benefits to suit your employees’ needs.

This will mean different things for different companies, and just because your competitor is offering a benefit doesn’t mean you should do the same.

When it comes to finding the right benefits for your business, it’s important to ask questions like these:

What are our employees’ needs, and how can we provide benefits to help with this?
Which benefits are our employees already using, and which ones are less popular?
Which benefits are they asking for? Regular employee feedback should form the foundation of your benefits strategy.

Knowing your employees and providing the kind of benefits that will support their lives is the best way to start building an employee benefits package that will help you stand out in the war for talent.

Frequently asked questions about employee benefits

What makes an employee benefits package competitive?

A competitive employee benefits package should reflect what employees genuinely value, while supporting the wider goals of the business. This could include healthcare, life insurance, income protection, mental health support, flexible working arrangements and other benefits that support employees’ health, well-being and financial security.

For international businesses, competitiveness also depends on how accessible and relevant those benefits are across different countries. A package that works well for one workforce may not meet the needs of employees based elsewhere.

What benefits do international employees value most?

There is no single combination of benefits that will suit every international workforce. Employee priorities can vary depending on their location, family circumstances, age and individual needs.

However, access to quality healthcare, financial protection, mental health support and flexibility are often important considerations. For employees living or working abroad, benefits that provide reliable support across borders can be particularly valuable.

Should employee benefits be the same for employees in every country?

Not necessarily. While a consistent approach can help create fairness across an international workforce, offering exactly the same benefits in every country may not always be practical or appropriate.

Healthcare systems, regulations, costs and employee expectations can vary significantly between countries. Many international businesses therefore combine a core set of global benefits with additional benefits or adjustments that reflect local requirements.

How can businesses make employee benefits fair across different countries?

Fairness does not always mean offering identical benefits to every employee. Instead, businesses should consider whether their overall benefits package provides comparable value and support across different locations.

This means taking into account factors such as local healthcare systems, legislation, employee expectations and the cost of providing benefits in each country.

Regularly reviewing employee feedback and comparing benefits across locations can also help identify gaps or inconsistencies.

How can small businesses compete with larger companies on employee benefits?

Smaller businesses do not necessarily need to match the size or cost of the benefits offered by larger employers. A more targeted package can be competitive when it focuses on benefits that employees genuinely value.

Flexibility, relevant healthcare and financial protection can all contribute to a strong benefits offering. Understanding what matters most to your employees can help you prioritise your budget and create a package that supports both recruitment and retention.

How can businesses measure whether their employee benefits are competitive?

Businesses can assess the effectiveness of their benefits package in several ways. Employee surveys and feedback can reveal which benefits people value most, while take-up rates can show whether existing benefits are being used.

It can also be useful to monitor recruitment and retention, gather feedback from candidates and compare your offering with benefits provided by competitors.

For international businesses, reviewing whether benefits remain relevant and accessible across different locations is particularly important.

Are you looking to hire overseas talent?

Learn more about EOR services

We can help you build an employee benefits package that works globally

A competitive employee benefits package can do more than help you attract and retain talent. For international businesses, it can also help you support employee wellbeing and give your people confidence that they can access the right support wherever their work takes them.

At William Russell, we’ve been helping internationally minded businesses and globally mobile employees for over 30 years. Our international employee benefits, including group health insurance, group life insurance and group income protection insurance, are designed specifically for cross-border workforces and can be tailored to the needs of your business.

Find out how we can support your business

Our flexible employee benefits solutions can help you build a package that reflects the needs of a diverse, internationally mobile workforce. Depending on your requirements, this can include:

Global coverage and access to leading healthcare networks, helping employees access care, wherever they are in the world
24/7 digital health services, providing your employees around-the-clock access to medical support
Tailored solutions for diverse teams, with culturally sensitive healthcare options and benefits that reflect the needs of a global workforce
Mental health support, including cover for mental health treatment on our comprehensive plans
Flexible income protection: providing up to 80% of an employee’s earnings if they are unable to work due to illness or injury

Whether you’re reviewing your existing benefits strategy or expanding into new markets, our award-winning team can help you explore your options and put together a benefits package that works for your business and your people.

Terms & conditions apply to our insurance products and services. You can find full details of what our plans cover (and what they don’t cover) in our plan agreements.