The customer service industry has been named the UK’s second best-performing industry for employee benefits, according to new research, highlighting the sector’s commitment to employee wellbeing and workplace culture.
The ‘Employee Benefits Index’, from sharetech platform Vestd, analysed over 130,000 job listings across over 30 industries, assessing the availability of 20 key employee benefits.
To create the overall ranking, each industry was given a weighted score of 100 based on the percentage of jobs that had each benefit, and totalled up to give an index score out of 2,000. The higher the score, the better the benefits package offered in the industry.
The customer service sector ranked second highest, with a benefits index score of 671 out of 2,000 setting a strong benchmark for other industries to follow.
With over 2,100 active job vacancies, the most common benefits to attract talent were bonuses (offered in 22% of listings) and flexible working (20%).
This comes as research by TotalJobs found that two-thirds of candidates would forgo a pay rise in exchange for more flexible working hours.
The customer service industry also stood out for offering more progressive benefits such as cycle to work schemes (11.61%), life insurance (7.46%) and a company car (7.28%), placing it among the more forward-thinking industries when it comes to benefits.
However, just 3% of firms within the sector provided employee share schemes, and only 0.05% offered profit sharing, indicating significant room for improvement in long-term incentive offerings.
This comes as research finds that 93% of leaders agreed shared ownership schemes supported recruitment efforts, while 45% believed share schemes made it easier to attract talent.
The motoring and automotive sector leads the way for employee benefits, with a score of 704, with bonus schemes and flexible working the most popular incentives for jobs in this industry. Hospitality was the third best sector, behind customer service, with a score of 660.
At the bottom of the ranking was the scientific sector, with a score of just 210, followed closely by media, digital, and creative (215) and education (229).
Ifty Nasir, founder and CEO of Vestd, commented on the research:
“Despite growing awareness of the importance of employee benefits, too many organisations still view benefit packages as a cost hit rather than a strategic investment. But when you consider the ROI of a well-designed employee benefits package, chiefly in improving retention and employee engagement, the financial need is clear.”
“It is great to see customer service businesses are utilising employee benefits to attract and retain specialist talent by successfully offering more progressive workplace perks. However, with our ‘Employee Benefits Index’ showing that sectors offering long-term incentives like EMI schemes also outperformed in overall benefits, the sector still has significant room for improvement in long-term incentive offerings.”
“With National Insurance contributions on the rise, turning to equity-based schemes also works as a tax-efficient alternative to pay rises or bonuses. In doing so, companies that invest in their benefits provision and long-term incentives are not just supporting their teams, but are strategically safeguarding their bottom line and protecting their long-term stability in a tough economic climate.”
Methdology: Vestd used the job search engine Reed, to search for 20 common benefits found in job descriptions, and filtered the search by industry.
We then took the resulting number of jobs listed and divided this by the total number of jobs currently listed in the UK on Indeed. The resulting percentage gives us an indication of how often a specific job benefit appears on a job description within that industry.
In order to create the overall ranking, we gave each industry a weighted score out of 100 for each benefit, based on the proportion of jobs offering the incentive and totalled the scores to give an overall ranking. The higher the score, the better the benefits packages offered in that industry.
For additional information on Vestd visit their Website
