A new concept developed by The Birch Tree to review employee benefits in a holistic way. This is to ensure the expectations of employees, business and external stakeholders are taken into consideration, while simultaneously taking the challenges of the financial results into the equation.

A base level of employee benefits and social protection from international groups of companies around the world to cover all employees. Today increasingly more companies decide, that as part of their social responsibility and solidarity with their employees, they wish to implement these changes. This has grown as part of the ILO’s (International Labour Organization) Global Business Network.

Benefits floors mean that all employees in all countries have the same level of benefits. Market based benefits means that benefits are defined based on the market expectations and levels mostly by country. When a company wishes to be socially responsible and competitive at the same time, they will need to review both in defining their employee benefits.

Do we know our global spend ? Where are we compared to the market ? Do we know and offer what our employees want ? Have we cost optimized our spend ? Are we delivering on the social aspects of ESG ? Have we aligned it to our business strategy and purpose ?

Your employees are looking for personalized consumer-grade solutions for their benefits. This lets them fulfil their own needs and expectations by granting them the opportunity to spend their benefits and financial wellbeing budget themselves.

Your business is looking for visibility, governance and cost optimization when it comes to employee benefits. Also, for benefits which ensure you are competitive in the labour market and which underline your employer brand.

Your stakeholders are looking to you to design your employee benefits so they deliver purpose, sustainability and social engagement, thereby contributing to the social “S” in ESG.

External stakeholders are many. Some of the most important are often customers, investors, shareholders, public authorities and potential new employees.

Depending on where you are on your roadmap to optimize your benefits management, it is often possible to do this in a holistic process, which will help finance your new initiatives.

ESG stands for Environment, Social and Governance. These are criteria for businesses to show and measure their social responsibility, and how advanced they are with acting sustainably. Investors are increasingly using these factors as part of their analysis process.

The S stands for Social. Here businesses can show their impacts on social factors. These could be DEI, fair salary or social protection related. The S is lately receiving more focus from businesses and stakeholders.

Today 55% of the world’s population have no social benefits at all. Less than 30% have an effective coverage. This can be pension rights, health insurance, life insurance, coverage of the birth of a child, etc.
At The Birch Tree we see this as a human right, to be able to live in dignity.