It is 2023, and you should expect to receive benefits from your employer. Many employers treat benefits as a luxury item that you should remain eternally grateful for receiving. In reality, benefits are part of your overall compensation—just like your salary. If a benefit is important to you, make sure it is included in your compensation package before signing a contract with a new employer.
While standards vary from industry to industry, if you can find one employer in your industry that offers a particular benefit, feel empowered to ask for it or find an employer who will offer it to you! This is not an area to sacrifice if a certain benefit will increase your happiness and/or reduce your stress level. The following benefits are offered by real companies in the United States. You should not have to compromise any of these to prioritize another, unless you have a job that requires you to be at a physical location to do something like treat patients, conduct manual work, or work with a customer to fix a physical item. I receive all these benefits from my employer, and they are reasonable demands for you as well:
1. Health Insurance
While companies with 50+ employees can be penalized with fines for not offering health insurance to at least 95% of full-time employees due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), smaller companies often offer health insurance as a benefit as well. Research your potential employer’s benefits on the company website and read reviews to see if health insurance is included in the benefits package.
If your company is large, it likely has a benefits guide. You can ask to review a benefits guide before signing a contract with a company. This should outline the various insurance options so you can review the types of plans. If you want to verify that your doctor is in network, make sure the dental and vision coverage are sufficient and/or affordable, or see if the company has a certain type of plan, this is a good idea.
When you work for a large company that has historically offered consistent coverage, reviewing the benefits package is sufficient. However, if you read any reviews that indicate the employer sometimes takes away or changes benefits, it may be prudent to ask your employer to include your health coverage in your employment contract before signing it. This becomes particularly true if you work for a small company where your employer is exempt from any fines under the ACA.
Not having reliable health insurance will negatively impact your job performance, so it is reasonable to request it from your employer. Healthy employees are better employees because they can worry about the quality of their work instead of the lingering wrist pain for which they do not see a doctor because they worry about the expense. Get yourself health insurance through your employer, so you can worry about everything else in your life instead.
2. Paid Parental Leave
Up front: I am childfree by choice and believe having children is a choice (in most states, for now), but parental leave should be viewed as a necessity because of the huge benefits it has for a child’s health, a child’s development and education, the parents’ health, and society as a whole. The first years in a child’s life are the most important for shaping development, and giving parents leave to spend time bonding with their child and adding the personal enrichment of a loving parent is crucial for that child to grow up and become the kind of person you would want to be your friend or neighbor.
Employers are only required to provide 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave—for any parent, not just the birth parent, as of 2020—and this is only required for companies with 50+ employees. If you plan to become a parent or are one, you already know that 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave is pitiful. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization now recommend at least 18 weeks of maternity leave because this longer period improves maternal mental and physical health. It can also facilitate family choices to breastfeed for the health of a newborn.
The United States lags behind all other developed countries and fails to meet these international guidelines, so you ultimately need to protect yourself by finding an employer with parental leave. If you plan on having a child while working at your employer, find yourself an employer with at least three months of paid parental leave. The federal government now offers 12 weeks of paid parental leave during the first 12 months of a child’s life, or placement if adopted. The 12-week standard is now pretty common in workplaces, so consider it your minimum. It can also provide the flexibility for anyone with a co-parent to take their leave at different times to provide the child with an at-home parent for the first 5–6 months, depending on the amount of leave both parents take for the birth or placement.
Particularly if you plan to have multiple children or lack local family and friends with the capacity to assist frequently, find yourself an employer that offers more than 12 weeks of paid parental leave. More companies are offering paid parental leave periods of 4–8 months, so try to find one in your industry with around six months of paid parental leave. Allowing any parent to be present for the beginning of their child’s life is important. This is a benefit where you should get as much time as you need.
3. Unlimited Leave
Speaking of as much time as you need, unlimited leave is also becoming more common as an employer benefit. I have it, use it, and love it! Particularly in the United States, which lags behind other developed countries similarly to its poor parental leave policies, securing sufficient leave is important.
But how is unlimited leave possible, and how does it work? This is a common question because true unlimited leave would mean that I go on vacation and never return, but that has not happened. In reality, unlimited leave is when an employer allows employees to take as much leave as they need while still getting their job done. As long as they do their job well, they can take the leave they need. There are also usually stipulations about how many consecutive weeks a person can take leave. For example, my employer requires approval for more than two weeks of consecutive leave and limits consecutive weeks to three weeks under regular personal leave. In other words, the way to maximize your leave without extra paperwork is to limit yourself to two-week vacations.
The biggest issue I see with employees who have unlimited leave is the complaint that they feel they cannot ever use their leave because they do not have a special allotment of leave. They say their employer will not let them take their leave. This is almost always an issue where the employee has not set a boundary. No employer has ever let me take my leave because I never asked to take my leave. I tell my employer the first time I am taking leave. The only question I ask is how they would like to be notified. If my employer tells me to send a calendar invite or put the information on a team calendar, that is what I will do going forward to inform them of my leave.
If unlimited leave still intimidates you, set a number of days to strive to take off in a year. For example, I wanted to hit the standard leave allotments for European countries last year, so I set the goal to take about 27–30 days for the year. I ended up taking 234 hours of personal leave (which does not include paid holidays), or 29.25 days, plus four volunteer hours to put myself right below the 30-day mark! Set a standard that works for you, and manipulate it as necessary. This year, I will take off a bit more. Just find a balance that works for you, and make sure you are taking enough leave rather than worrying about taking too much.
If your industry truly has no employers offering unlimited leave, just get as much leave as you can. The 10–15 days most Americans accept is truly insufficient. You earn money to live your life, so get some days to enjoy it. Find an employer with at least 20 days of leave, if not more.
4. Location Flexibility
Disclaimer: If you are a doctor, veterinarian, nurse, construction worker, cleaner, building manager, plumber, painter, driver, or anyone else that works a job where you have to go to see a patient, a building, or a site, this one is unfortunately not a realistic demand for your situation. That said, it may be a realistic demand for the parts of your job that involve paperwork or records-keeping, so consider whether that is pertinent to you!
For the many folks that work on a job that is mostly completed through a computer and/or a phone, or could be, this is for you. This is an ever-developing debate right now, but you should be allowed to work wherever you want to work as long as you can complete all the required work for your job. Hard stop. Too many workplaces are claiming there is added value from in-person work when all their work could be done from a yacht floating in the Mediterranean. If your workplace claims you need to be in person because of team chemistry, culture, the value of face-to-face conversations, to show face, or any other squishy reason, your employer is wrong. Challenge them.
If you can do your whole job remotely and want to work remotely, you should be able to work remotely. Conversely, if you prefer to work in an office, you should be able to work at the office. If you prefer a hybrid work schedule, then work a hybrid schedule. However, do be realistic. If you are working remotely more often than working in the office, you do not need your own personal office space, so accept a shared desk. If you do go to the office each day, personal space is warranted. Offer your employer the courtesy of being realistic, but then require them to do the same with you.
5. Above-Average 401(k) Match (or a pension plan that works for you)
Since most employers now forgo pensions, finding an employer that contributes to your retirement through a 401(k)* match is important to funding your retirement. Average 401(k) matches are in the 3–5% range. They are not always dollar-for-dollar matches: For example, your employer may match $0.50 per $1 on the first 8% you contribute. This is effectively a 4% match as long as you contribute at least 8%, since the employer is contributing half of what you contribute up to 8%.
When searching for employer benefits, aim to be above average, or above that 5% mark. I enjoy an effective 7% match, and it makes a world of difference. Folks tend to minimize how much a match impacts retirement investing when considering that a percentage may be a small dollar amount in each paycheck. However, your employer is contributing that percentage of your entire salary over the year. If you make $100,000/year, going from a 3% match ($3,000/year) to a 7% match ($7,000/year) is a $4,000 difference! Put another way, a 7% match on $100,000 is more money than what you are allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA in 2023. Aim to find a match greater than 5%, so you basically have a whole other IRA in the long-run.
In addition to the match amount, make sure your employer has a reasonable vesting schedule. Some employers require six years of work before your 401(k) contributions are fully vested, and that is not what you want. Waiting a year to show you are with the company for longer than an initial training period is reasonable, but multiple years is not worth it. You do not want to find yourself stuck in a dead-end job or experiencing burnout because you need to wait another six months for your 401(k) to vest.
Did that seem demanding?
Does it seem demanding to take care of your physical health, raise your child, experience some joy, take care of your mental health, and plan for retirement? That is the culmination of these five requests. If these basic concepts seem demanding, you may need to reconsider whether you are prioritizing yourself sufficiently or if you have fallen into a culture of burnout and overwork. Working is a means to an end, and salary is not your only compensation. Find an employer that offers the benefits you deserve to create a happier work environment and a happier life.
* I use “401(k)” to discuss factors that are true for various types of employer-sponsored retirement accounts. In any case where there are differences, they are specified. The specific type of account available to you is based on your employer type. For example, only federal government employees can participate in the Thrift Savings Plan.
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