Benefits usually come up when something changes—hiring, budgets, or a question you weren’t expecting. Here’s what we’ve learned at Employer Services Corporation, after 30 years helping businesses make these decisions: the best benefits package isn’t always the largest one. It’s the one tailored to your team. The key is to build a benefits package that’s aligned with your budget and designed to help your business attract and keep great people. Let’s break down how to make smarter, more confident decisions during budget planning. Required Benefits: The Foundation You Have to Build Before you can get strategic, you need to know what’s non-negotiable. Required benefits are the legal baseline. Take a few moments to check through the following before considering how supplemental benefits can make a difference in your business. Federal Requirements Social Security and Medicare (FICA): You and your employees both contribute. This is automatic. Workers’ Compensation Insurance: Covers medical costs and lost wages if someone gets hurt on the job. Required in almost every state. Unemployment Insurance: Provides temporary income if employees lose their jobs through no fault of their own. FMLA (for employers with 50+ employees): Guarantees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for qualifying medical and family reasons. New York State Requirements New York adds a few more: Disability Benefits (DBL): Short-term income replacement if an employee can’t work due to illness or injury. Paid Family Leave (PFL): Gives employees paid time off to bond with a new child or care for a seriously ill family member. Paid Sick Leave: Depending on company size, employees earn a set amount of paid sick time each year. Secure Choice Savings Program: Designed for employees who do not have access to a retirement plan through their employer. The first step to making HR your competitive advantage is making sure you’ve checked all the boxes you need to check first. Compliance is a steady foundation from which you can build. READ MORE: Make Compliance a Tool for Trust-Building Supplemental Benefits: Where You Build Competitive Advantage This is the gap between “we have to” and “we could” in your employee benefits strategy. Supplemental benefits can be part of how a business stands out, and they can help in attracting and retaining top talent. Supplemental benefits your business offers might include: Health insurance (medical contributions, dental, vision) Retirement plans (like 401(k) matching) Incentive plans (like commissions or profit sharing) Life insurance Short-term and long-term disability insurance Flexible spending accounts (FSA) or health savings accounts (HSA) Paid time off (PTO) beyond required minimums Professional development, training or education assistance Student loan repayment assistance Remote/hybrid work flexibility Wellness programs The key with supplemental benefits: Listen to your employees! Honest conversations can help you identify what supplemental benefits would be most valuable to them. Do they want more support at home through insurance and retirement benefits? Or do they value flexibility in how and where they work, in addition to having more PTO to spend with their families? Considerations for Structuring Your Benefits Package If you’re rethinking your benefits package, it can help to shift the mindset from “what should we offer?” to “what actually works for our people and our business?” The goal isn’t to copy what others are doing. It’s to build something that reflects how your team lives, works, and grows. Start by understanding what matters day to day. The simplest way to get there is to listen. A short survey or a few intentional conversations can uncover patterns you might not expect. In some teams, flexibility or time off carries more weight than additional compensation. In others, support for learning, childcare, or long-term savings stands out. The point isn’t to guess—it’s to learn. Then, look outward for context. What are people likely to encounter elsewhere in your industry or local market? Job postings and peer conversations can offer a window into what candidates are seeing and comparing. This isn’t about keeping up for the sake of it, but understanding the baseline expectations so you can make thoughtful trade-offs. Finally, consider how your approach holds up over time. The most effective benefits programs are the ones you can sustain. Consistency builds trust. When people know what to expect—from time off policies to retirement contributions—it removes uncertainty and helps them plan their own lives with confidence. Benefits packages are something to be revisited every year. The cost of certain benefits you offer will certainly change, as will the types of benefits your employees want. Take something like health insurance, for example: how will you handle annual rate increases? How will those affect your contributions to employees? When HR works in coordination with finance, one option to handle this is to set annual health insurance contributions as a percentage of payroll. As a business owner, the goal here is to try and balance predictability and flexibility. Knowing that costs are going to go up over time, how can you build a sustainable program for benefits like these? These considerations offer a grounded approach to benefits strategy: one that’s informed by your team, aware of your market, and aligned with how your business operates day-to-day and year-to-year. What About Unlimited Paid Time Off? Unlimited PTO sounds appealing: employees take time off as needed, with manager approval. No tracking. No accruals. Unlimited PTO works best in small, high-trust teams where managers actively encourage breaks and you set clear expectations of how much PTO can and should be used. Leadership’s example and engagement in the process is the easiest way to avoid employees using too little (because they don’t know how much they should use) or too much (to the detriment of their work). If you offer it, you need guardrails: Define minimums and maximums Track usage anyway (if someone hasn’t taken a day in six months, that’s a problem) Train managers to approve requests consistently For most businesses, a generous, clearly defined policy creates less confusion: Set 15–20 days per year, plus holidays Front-load PTO at the start of the year Build in flexibility for exceptions This gives employees predictability, managers clear boundaries, and you the simplicity you want. Benefits Are Part of Your Competitive Advantage Looking at benefits as part of your overall compensation plan helps you create a competitive offer while moderating costs for your business. This kind of strategic thinking takes time to develop. And it helps to have a partner who’s been through it before. At Employer Services Corporation, we offer businesses trusted guidance when structuring benefits for their teams. The goal isn’t to offer everything, it’s to offer what works for your specific team and budget.