All About Benefits Portals in Sweden

The primary purpose of a benefits portal is to ensure that you and your company become an attractive employer. There are many advantages to offering benefits to your employees. Below is a list of the strongest reasons why companies today invest in a benefits portal:

Strengthen employer branding = become more attractive as an employer

Whether you are a small company or a large one, there is much value in becoming an attractive employer. However, to stand out from the crowd, you need to offer something beyond the ordinary. That’s what a benefits portal can do. A good example is being able to offer benefits that help with the work-life balance. Such benefits can include cleaning services, childcare, or time exchange, all of which are highly appreciated benefits. They are typical benefits that get your employees talking about you at the dinner table. Gaining a good reputation as an employer is, of course, invaluable. When you start communicating benefits on an individual level so that employees can understand the full value of the benefits offered, it becomes easier to turn your employees into "brand ambassadors."

Total compensation instead of base salary

Many companies may struggle to compete with attractive salaries. A benefits portal helps you as an employer communicate total compensation instead of just base salary. By communicating personalized total compensation to the employee, you convey that it’s not always "greener on the other side," regardless of whether there is a few thousand more in salary. With an overview of total compensation, you can see the value (preferably with numbers) of pensions, insurance, wellness grants, salary exchange, corporate events, etc. What we at BusinessWith strongly recommend is also presenting total compensation during the recruitment process, so that the recruit understands the full value of your offer, rather than just the base salary.

Benefits administration

Offering benefits is appreciated but places a significant burden on the administration department. A benefits portal can eliminate large parts of the administration related to benefits. This leads to savings in administration and more efficient processes. A benefits portal can handle all wellness receipts or the entire process of salary exchanges (communication – usage - administration).

All About Benefits – Work-Life Balance, Pension, Wellness, and Gross Benefits

There are numerous different benefit offerings, and most benefits portals can offer several of the categories below. To understand what this entails, we have made a brief summary:

Work-life balance

How can you as an employer help your staff with everyday stress and work-life balance? One suggestion is to offer the following:

• Cleaning services
• Childcare
• Time exchange
• Meal packages

In several benefits portals, employees can order benefits via salary deductions or exchange time directly in the benefits portal.

Pension

Pensions are complex for the average person, but since benefits portals are personalized, they are an excellent tool for communicating pensions based on the employee's situation. In addition to communicating pensions, many providers offer digital pension advice or traditional pension counseling, which is also a highly appreciated benefit.

Gross benefits

In Sweden, there are few gross benefits. It is important to ask if the provider offers gross salary deductions and can manage the administration. Examples of gross benefits include IVF treatments, laser eye surgeries, and healthcare chiropractic.

Wellness

Wellness benefits are highly appreciated by employees. Most companies offer wellness grants today, but to get their staff to fully utilize the grant, a broad wellness offering is needed. There are wellness portals that work daily to add new providers so that as an employer, you can offer a comprehensive wellness offering. You can find these wellness portals under the category "wellness systems."

Salary exchange - a valued benefit

What is often mentioned in connection with a benefits portal is whether salary exchange can be performed. There are different types of salary exchanges, and it is your internal policies and processes that determine this. Below are some suggestions for salary exchange methods:

Salary exchange for pension

The most common salary exchange is to offer the possibility to exchange salary for pension. There are many advantages to salary exchange, but there are also limits where it is not tax advantageous. However, a benefits portal handles the communication and can easily set a limit that prevents the employee from executing their salary exchange if it is not deemed advantageous.

Bonus exchange for extra pension

For companies that offer bonuses, there is the possibility via a benefits portal to offer bonus exchange. If you collaborate with various insurance or pension companies, you can easily set up an efficient process in the benefits portal, allowing those who have received a bonus to choose whether they want to take it in cash or as pension.

Time exchange for an extra vacation day

If you have a time bank, you can offer the opportunity to exchange time for an extra vacation day. However, there are limits before you become subject to benefit taxation.

Exchange ATK bank

Most common for companies that have employees working in factories or on assignments "on the roads." Very similar to the above but more focused on taking it from the ATK bank which is procured through collective agreements or internal policy.

Compare benefits portal providers

There are only five benefits portals offered in the Swedish market. This makes it easy to get a quick overview of providers. However, they differ significantly in benefit offerings, integration technology, business model, customer customization, and employer branding strategy, etc.

A benefits portal should be a long-term investment. Therefore, it is important that the comparison is made carefully and that you ask the right questions in your meetings with the provider. Examples of questions you should get answers to include:

• Can the portal be branded according to the company's guidelines?
• Do you have salary exchange for pension as a module?
• How does the integration of the portal with our payroll system work?
• Can benefits be ordered via an app?
• Do you have receipt management?
• How do you provide feedback on salary deduction files?
• How do you work to have a benefits offering that is attractive to different generations and life situations?
• How does the communication setup in the portal work?
• What are the three main reasons we should choose your benefits portal for our organization?

If you are unsure about which questions to prioritize and what other questions to ask, feel free to contact us at Businesswith.se.