Chennai: The war for talent, heightened focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, and rising benefit costs are fuelling a surge in companies in India planning to revamp their employee benefit strategy.
Their goals are to differentiate themselves, personalise the employee experience and manage the costs of their benefit programmes. That is
according to a survey by Willis Towers Watson, a global advisory, broking and solutions company.
The India findings of the 2021 Benefits Trends Survey found that while 68 per cent companies in India offer market competitive benefits, only 43 per cent address the individual needs of their workforce and even fewer (32 per cent) offer significant flexibility and choice. The survey highlights that the top strategic objectives in the next two years are integrating wellbeing into the benefits package (65 per cent), increasing flexibility and choice (51 per cent), enhancing tools and technology to support employees (46 per cent) and focussing on inclusion and diversity in benefits provision (38 per cent).
Transition times
Cactus Communications, a technology company accelerating scientific advancement, has announced its transition to a remote-first company for all its 1,200 employees across nine locations globally.
‘Three hundred and twenty people joined Cactus in the seven months leading up to October 2021, and 50 per cent of our new hires are from locations where we don’t have physical offices, such as Jaipur, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, and many others,’ said Yashmi Pujara, chief human resources officer at Cactus.