Why Offer Employee Benefits - Baker & Baker Benefits

What Every Small Business Owner Needs to Know

The current labour market has shifted and is now in favour of the employee. Coming out of the pandemic, there are more jobs available than there are people willing to fill them.

What does this mean to the average small business owner? In a nut shell, it is increasingly difficult to find the right employees for positions that need to be filled.

There are a couple of ways companies can overcome this:

Increase salaries.
Offer better employee benefit plans.

Increased salaries certainly do attract top-end talent. Unfortunately, they also result in higher payroll taxes, which can be substantial in Canada.

The premiums paid into a group benefits plan, however, are a tax deductible expense to the company and are not taxable benefits to the employees!

Why Offer Group Benefits Coverage?

There are numerous positives when it comes to offering your employees a comprehensive group insurance plan. The following just outlines some of these:

A competitive benefits plan will attract and retain qualified and stable employees to your team.
Benefits plans do not have to be complicated. They can be simple to set up and administer (we now have a group benefits portal for existing clients, more about this later.
Benefit plans promote you as a caring and concerned employer. This will attract employees with a longer term outlook with your company, reducing turnover and training costs.
A robust employee benefits plan provides peace of mind to your team since they don’t have to worry about the cost of unexpected medical expenses.
Group insurance premiums are tax deductible to the employer.
Benefit plan claims are (usually) not considered taxable income to the employee.

How Many Employees Do I Need for a Group Benefits Plan?

Ideally 3 or more employees are needed. However, there are options for a minimum of two (2) people.

Employees and owners who work full time are eligible to join and in many cases contract employees can be included as well.

Smaller Companies and Group Benefits

If you own a small company and cannot afford a traditional group insurance plan then you should know there are some options available to you.

Personal health insurance plans tend to be cheaper than group plans, but this comes at a cost. For example, many individual health and dental plans are medically underwritten, and also have substantially lower overall maximums.