Smartsalary conducted a survey based study on what drives employee benefits in an organisation and how the HR community views benefits from an attraction-retention-engagement lens. The survey was rolled out to about 2000 HR managers across Australia via LinkedIn.

1. What drives employee benefits
strategy in Australian
organisations?
- Study through survey of Australian HR managers

2. Executive Summary
100% of HR managers surveyed say that employee benefits
1
drive retention
Leave and flexibility are considered most important type of
2
employee benefits followed by financial benefits such as
salary packaging
3 Cost to the organisation is a key factor in deciding which
employee benefit to provide to their workforce
Understanding of salary packaging and novated leasing is
4
high among the HR managers surveyed
5 73% of organisations surveyed already have salary
packaging or novated leasing in place
78% of organisations that do not already have salary
6
packaging or novated leasing are considering to implement
in 2013!

3. DRIVERS OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS
We asked what the main drivers of an employee
benefits strategy were:
of HR managers surveyed either
agree or strongly agree that
employee benefits drive
retention

4. What do you see are the main drivers of an
employee benefits program?
Engaging Staff 5% 63% 32%
Retaining existing staff 36% 64%
Attracting new staff 5% 59% 35%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

5. Types of Employee benefits ranked in order of
importance to HR managers surveyed
1
Leave and
flexibility 2
3
benefits Financial
benefits such as
salary packaging
Wellness
programs such
as gym
memberships 4
Access to
consumer
retail
discounts 5
Leisure and
lifestyle
memberships

6. Cost to the organisation is a top consideration
while deciding what benefits to give employees
1
Cost to the organisation
2
Potential participation of employees
3
Ease of implementation
4
Savings offered to employees
5
Compliance and risk

7. Awareness and understanding of salary packaging and novated
leasing is high among HR managers across Australia
I understand salary
packaging and
novated leasing very
well, 57%
Somewhat understand
the benefits, 38%
I don't know anything
about salary
packaging or novated
leasing, 5%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
7

8. 73% of HR managers surveyed have salary packaging or
novated leasing as an employee benefit in their organisation
already
Does salary packaging or novated leasing form part of your
organisation's employee benefits program?
Yes
No
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
8

9. 78% of HR managers who do not offer salary packaging or
novated leasing are considering offering it in 2013
Would you consider exploring the option of including salary
packaging and novated leasing as part of your organisation’s
employee benefits program in 2013?
Yes
No
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
9

10. Only 19% of organisations that do salary package do it internally
completely
Do you outsource or do the benefits administration internally?
Combination
37%
Outsourced
44%
Internally
19%
In the combination category, most do salary packaging internal and novated leasing outsourced
10

11. The main advantages of why organisations want to
salary package – particularly cars
Top advantages of providing salary packaging and novated leasing
Tax benefits and therefore more competitive salaries
Meets employee expectations and is consistent with competitor offering
Employees expect it nowadays
Cost neutral to the company. Employees get to purchase a vehicle they would not normally be
able to afford.
Provides freedom of choice and flexibility for employees and reduced vehicle costs to employers
More to offer to employees, leads to greater tie-in or retention
Tax benefits; ability to spread cost

12. Top challenges to providing salary packaging: HR
managers believe there’s not enough benefit for employees
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
68%
30%
50%
20% 43%
39%
10% 18%
0%
Employees aren't It is expensive to It is difficult to The process is There's not enough
interested implement and understand how complex to benefit for
administer salary implement and employees
packaging/novated administer
leasing works
One of the respondents’ comments was - “Planning, thought and variety overcome these challenges”.

13. 71% of HR managers would consider a service that guarantees the
lowest price for new cars as an employee benefit outside of salary
sacrifice
Car buying service
Yes 71%
No 29%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%