The great resignation and reshuffle continues to keep HR professionals up at night, giving employers pause to re-evaluate their benefits packages to help retain top talent. You might think that your company is already offering a competitive benefits package — but what if there was a key benefit that most employers have overlooked?
Along with other support for employees’ financial wellness, there is an opportunity in today’s competitive talent market for companies to take the next step and help connect their employees with estate planning services. More than simply creating a will, estate planning arranges your affairs and finances to ensure your wishes will be carried out if you're temporarily or permanently incapable of handling them. Similar to insurance, it is a life essential, but surprisingly not currently treated as a critical employee benefit.
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Here are a few reasons why estate planning needs to be part of the conversation as an in-demand employee benefit.
Estate planning creates value for employees by securing their financial legacy
When you think about employee benefits, so many of the most-valued benefits are ultimately about supporting employees’ financial security. A recent Morgan Stanley survey found that 90% of employees want their company to prioritize financial benefits, and 95% of HR executives plan to do so.
There are many ways that a company helps its employees to create wealth and protect their financial security: retirement savings plans, health insurance, voluntary life and disability insurance, and more. Estate planning can be part of this mix of benefits that are focused on protecting and supporting employees’ finances — by helping employees protect their financial legacies.
Offering estate planning as a benefit is also a natural way for employers to show compassion for employees and help them have peace of mind about their family’s financial future.
Differentiate yourself from the crowd
There is a gap in the market: employees want estate planning services, but many employers currently do not provide them.
A new study commissioned by my company, “The State of Estate Planning,” revealed that only 13% of workers get estate planning as a benefit now. Yet of the remaining 87%, more than 72% would be interested in using estate planning services if they were offered by their employer. There is an opportunity here for your company to meet this unmet demand and stand out from the competition.
Estate planning as a benefit shows talent that you care
Offering estate planning as a benefit is a great way to recruit and retain talent because it tangibly demonstrates that the company is caring for employees, which is particularly important to higher earners. Our survey reached an audience of people with high incomes: 56% had household incomes of $100-$149k per year, and 44% had incomes over $150k per year.
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Among these respondents, 70% of respondents want to hand down wealth to their loved ones as part of their personal financial goals, and 57% worried that managing their estate would be a major burden on their loved ones. Two in five respondents said they “just haven’t gotten around” to setting up an estate plan yet.
By offering estate planning as a benefit, you can show your top talent that you’re thinking ahead and anticipating their evolving financial needs. Especially for employees at fast-growing startups that have gone through a successful exit or that have retirement savings accounts at multiple former employers, estate planning can help people organize their assets and visualize their total net worth.
Your company helps employees build wealth. Now you can help protect that wealth and secure their financial legacies. Now is the time for estate planning to be part of the conversation for employee benefits packages. Estate planning can be a key ingredient in the mix of benefits to recruit and retain top talent.
