The 9 Best Employee Benefits To Offer Your Staff

As an employer, it’s important to offer perks and benefits to your employees. A robust benefits package can help you to attract, retain and motivate top talent at your company, improving your bottom line while helping you to build a strong employer brand.

However, not all benefits are created equal, which is why you should think hard about the kind of incentives you offer. Free tea and coffee may seem like a great benefit, but are they really going to help you keep hold of your top-performing employee?

In this article, we’ve narrowed down the nine best benefits you can offer your employees.

The best employee benefits

1. Health insurance
2. Mental health support
3. Dental cover
4. Life insurance
5. Accident benefits
6. Income protection
7. Flexible working
8. Enhanced maternity/paternity benefits
9. Paid time off

Why offering the best employee benefits matters

The importance of employee benefits is well-researched, and it appears incentive packages are becoming more important than ever. In 2025:

• 78% of employees agree that employee benefits are important when deciding whether to accept a job offer
• Companies offering a strong benefits package see a 56% reduction in employee attrition
• Competitive benefits programmes can lead to a 27% increase in employee productivity

A well-designed benefits package goes beyond the basics—it should address the real needs of your workforce and reflect the values of your company. The best employee benefits strike a balance between financial security, health and well-being, and professional growth, ensuring employees feel valued and supported.

Discover the importance of employee benefits

We look at how offering strong incentives can work for your business

The best employee benefits to offer your employees

1/ Health insurance

Health insurance is one of, if not the most popular workplace perk worldwide. Employers who offer a more premium health insurance package are more likely to acquire top talent, while those who do not offer it are more likely to see staff walk out the door. In 2021, 43% of people who quit their job cited poor health insurance as a reason.

Health insurance is particularly important for employees in countries like the United States and the UAE, where there is a legal obligation for some employers to provide it to their staff. It is also becoming popular in other countries, where it offers employees access to more premium health and wellness benefits.

For instance, research in the UK found that 51% of employees want their employers to provide private health insurance. With waiting lists for public healthcare growing, and the cost of healthcare rising around the world, it’s easy to see why private health insurance is fast becoming one of the most popular employer-provided benefits, even in countries that offer universal healthcare.

If you employ staff in other countries, you may wish to consider international health insurance as an employee benefit. This gives your employees access to high-quality medical care around the world, and offers additional services like medical evacuations.

Have you thought about offering your employees health cover?

Learn more about the benefits of international group health insurance

2/ Mental health support

As an employer, it’s in your best interests to protect the mental health and well-being of your employees. Not only are happy employees around 13% more productive, they also take on average nine fewer sick days per year. In 2022, mental health was the 5th most common reason given for sick leave in the UK, accounting for 7.9% of absences.

There are many proven ways to support your employees’ mental health. Some companies offer mental health days, where employees can take a paid day off to avoid stress and burnout. Others are experimenting with a four-day working week. And many offer smaller initiatives such as mindfulness training, group exercise and mental health workshops.

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However, many companies have also been accused of ‘mental health-washing’. This is where companies espouse the need for mental health awareness, while also continuing with business practices that are detrimental to mental health, such as long working hours and unrealistic demands. Claro Wellbeing found that in over a third (35%) of companies who claim to support mental health, employees believed their employers were not doing enough to support them.

When it comes to providing mental health support, avoid making gestures and instead focus on building a comprehensive package. Ensure your employees have access to professional mental health support by supporting their access to therapists, psychiatrists and specialists in mental health conditions. William Russell’s mental health benefits offer all this and much more*, helping you to keep your workforce happy and healthy.

It’s important to support your employees’ mental health

Take a look at the benefits of supporting employee mental health

3/ Dental cover

Did you know one of the most overlooked employee benefits is also one of the most sought-after? One survey of workers in the UK found that almost two-thirds (62%) of employees requested private dental insurance from their employers. However, only around one in five employers currently offers dental insurance.

Offering dental insurance as a benefit can support your business in many ways. The biggest advantage is a reduction in the number of sick days caused by toothache and other dental issues. In the UK, a study by Denplan found that 28% of workers take at least one sick day per year as a result of dental issues, with 7% needing a whole week off. 9% also claim that dental pain reduces their performance at work.

Therefore, helping your employees to access high-quality dental care could help save your company lost time and productivity. Better still, with so many employees on the hunt for dental insurance at work, providing a comprehensive package could help you to attract and retain top talent.

Oral health is one of the world’s biggest health concerns

Find out more about dental cover for your international employees

4/ Life insurance

Life insurance is rising in popularity as one of the most sought-after employee benefits. The Institute of Directors reports that life insurance has become 20% more popular among employees since the pandemic, while Forbes Advisor found that 45% of employees named life insurance as a top workplace benefit, only slightly behind health insurance.

Life insurance tends to become more popular as your employees grow older and their salaries rise. A comprehensive group life insurance policy ensures that employees’ families will be cared for financially if they die unexpectedly. There are other benefits too: for instance, your employees may require life insurance to secure a mortgage or other personal loans.

With William Russell, your employees can also take an early payment of their life insurance policy if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness with less than 12 months to live. This ensures they will be able to spend their remaining time doing the things they love.

Ultimately, group life insurance ensures your employees can enjoy total peace of mind, that in the event of their untimely death their families will be provided for.

Have you thought about offering your employees life insurance?

Protect your staff and their loved ones with group life insurance

5/ Accident benefits

Personal accident insurance protects your employees in the event they suffer an accident that leaves them permanently disabled, or results in their death. It is often provided alongside life insurance as a supplementary policy.

While life insurance covers your employee for most situations that result in their death, personal accident cover is exclusively for sudden and unexpected situations. It adds an extra level of peace of mind for your employees, knowing that if they die suddenly their family will be financially protected.

According to the World Health Organization, 4.4 million die as a result of accidental death every year. Of these, the International Labour Organization estimates that around 3 million people die in workplace-related incidents, meaning almost three-quarters of accidental deaths occur while a person is at work. A further 395 million sustain non-fatal injuries in the workplace.

Providing accident insurance can not only benefit your employees in the event they are injured or killed at work, it can also protect your business by effectively acting as a form of compensation. This is because accident insurance covers your employees both inside and outside of work. (Although it should go without saying that the best thing you can do as a business is reduce the risk of your employees being injured or killed.)

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6/ Income protection insurance

Another form of insurance that employees are increasingly asking for from their employers is income protection. This ensures that your employees will be able to continue earning a salary if they are rendered unable to work due to a serious accident or illness.

Recent studies in the UK found that 56% of workers believed they would feel more ‘resilient’ if they knew their income was protected, although only 9% of employees say they already benefit from this form of insurance.

With income protection insurance, your employees won’t need to worry about how they will pay their mortgage, childcare fees or buy essentials for their family if they are unable to work because of illness or injury. And for you as an employer, offering income protection may reduce the burden of paying long-term sick pay to employees who are unable to work**.

Group income protection insurance is not only beneficial for big businesses, but small businesses too. If you are self-employed or freelance, income protection can provide a valuable lifeline if you are seriously injured or diagnosed with a major illness. At William Russell, we pay up to 80% of your employees’ salaries up to a maximum US$144,000*.

Income protection insurance offers access to a replacement income

Here’s why it’s so important during the cost of living crisis

7/ Flexible working

In 2019, the idea that one day employees might work from home was considered revolutionary. In 2025, and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of remote and flexible working has become almost second nature. 

Around 28% of all employees worldwide now work remotely at least some of the time – and while many companies worldwide are trying to attract or even force employees back to the office, employee sentiment for remote and flexible working is still very strong. 91% of employees say they prefer a remote or flexible working structure.

It’s easy to understand why. Remote and flexible work gives employees much more control over their lives, helping them to achieve a better work-life balance. It also saves them money: employees in the US save around US$4,500 per year on commuting costs.

There’s still a big question around productivity: studies have found that remote workers tend to be around 10–20% less productive, despite 83% of those employees saying their performance is actually higher when working from home.

Whatever the case may be, offering flexible work is sure to make you a more attractive employer to work for, as employees remain steadfast in their desire to work remotely.

Have you thought of offering global remote working?

Some companies have taken their remote working policy to the next level by allowing their employees to work from anywhere in the world.

Whether it’s for a few weeks or full-time, this policy has allowed many workers to become digital nomads and travel the world while they work.

If you’re one of the 16% of companies that offer remote working full-time, and you trust your employees to complete their tasks and attend their meetings no matter where they settle, this policy could be a highly competitive incentive for your talent.

How can you build a strong remote work culture?

We look at building a strong remote work culture for global businesses

8/ Enhanced maternity/paternity benefits

Depending on where you and your employees are in the world, you may encounter different laws and customs surrounding maternity and paternity leave.

For instance, Bulgaria is widely credited for having the best maternity leave policy in the world, giving new mothers 410 days of cover with 90% pay. Japan, meanwhile, offers the longest period of paternity leave, giving new fathers one year off.

At the other end of the scale, the US has no statutory maternity or paternity leave policy, effectively meaning new mothers and fathers are not legally entitled to take time off work.

As an employer, you can go further to support your employees by offering enhanced maternity and paternity leave. This may include offering extended time off, additional pay beyond statutory requirements, or by allowing your employees to work part-time or remotely while they are in the process of returning to work.

Research has found that enhanced maternity and paternity leave is extremely popular with employees, with 57% saying it is a highly valued policy. Enhanced maternity/paternity policies are also becoming an area of increasing competition for businesses: in the UK, 74% of businesses now provide enhanced policies, leaving the remaining 26% scrambling to catch up.

Another way to enhance your maternity policies is to include specialist maternity insurance for your employees. This can be especially important if your employees live in a country where maternity care is known to be expensive. Find out more about how maternity insurance can benefit your employees here.

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Support your employees with our full guide to giving birth abroad

9/ Paid time off

As with maternity and paternity leave, different countries have different laws surrounding statutory leave. The country with the highest number of statutory holiday days per year is Andorra, where employees enjoy 31 vacation days plus 14 public holidays per year. On the other end of the spectrum, several countries offer zero statutory holiday days, including Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau, and the United States.

As an employer, you have the right to choose how many days annual leave you offer your employers beyond the statutory requirement. Many companies go the extra mile by offering staff additional holiday days as a reward for long service – so, employees gain one extra day’s vacation for every year they stay at the company.

You may even wish to offer paid sabbaticals for long service, in which employees can take several months off after staying at the company for five years, ten years or longer. This policy could help to convince staff to stay at the company for far longer. 

Some companies also offer ‘salary sacrifice’ schemes, where employees can purchase additional days of annual leave from their wages. And some companies have experimented with unlimited annual leave allowances, where employees can take as many (unpaid) days off as they like.

Another thing you should consider is whether your employees are using their full allocation of holiday days. In the UK, as many as 65% of employees do not use their full annual leave allocation, with many citing pressure from their bosses as a reason for not taking holiday. If your employees are not utilising their full allowance, it could be a hint that your staff are being overworked.

Ultimately, annual leave entitlement remains one of the biggest incentives that drives employees to, or from, their jobs. A recent survey in the United States found 30% of employees said annual leave was their most important workplace benefit, with 70% saying they would change jobs if they were offered more annual leave.

Why not offer a birthday day off?

Many companies around the world offer their employees an additional day of annual leave to be taken on their birthday (or the closest weekday if it falls on a weekend).

This is not only a great way to help your employees relax and make the most of their birthday, it also helps to show that you are willing to go above and beyond as an employer.

International benefits tailor-made for international employers

At William Russell, we have over 30 years’ experience providing international health, life and income protection insurance to employers like you.

Our international employee benefits package offers all three of these policies, with flexible terms and added extras to suit your needs and budget. As William Russell members, your employees can enjoy access to top quality healthcare around the world, plus life and income insurance for total peace of mind*. 

Speak to our award-winning team to find out how our international employee benefits can support your business today.

Looking to offer some of the best employee benefits to your international employees?

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*Terms and conditions apply.
**Limitations and exclusions usually apply.