If you own a small business but aren’t currently offering health benefits to your employees, you’re missing out on an opportunity to save money, attract and retain top talent, and even improve the productivity of your existing employees.
Many small business owners assume that health insurance are the prerogative of the “big players” in the corporate world, and not something they should be concerned with. This article explains why this simply isn’t true, and delves into the benefits you can expect to gain by offering your employees access to quality health insurance.
Attract (and keep) top performers in your industry
The national unemployment rate in the U.S. dropped 4.8% from July 2020 to July 2021. While this is great news for job seekers, it carries different implications for you as an employer.
A significant drop in unemployment means that competition among employers to attract and retain top talent in their fields has grown rapidly. Employees are beginning to enjoy a larger number of potential employment options again, so they’re far less likely to stay at a job that doesn’t offer competitive benefits and pay.
Employees routinely say that one of the things they most value (or most dislike) in a company is its health plan, or lack thereof. Offering a small business health plan at your company will help attract highly qualified professionals, and keep them around longer as well.
Small business health plans may reduce your taxes
It may seem counterintuitive that spending money can actually save you money in the long run. But when it comes to small business health insurance, this is indeed the case.
Although you’ll be required to devote capital to the health program itself, you can expect to see fairly significant savings when tax season rolls back around. As a business owner, your contributions to your employees’ health premiums are completely tax-deductible.
Some employers have even gotten strategic about this, and chosen to offer more comprehensive health insurance in place of higher wages.