Salary And Benefits Basics

In today’s scenario when the escalating prices are touching the sky, it becomes essential that your salary is able to provide you a satisfactory life in which all your basic necessities and a little more than that are comfortably met. But this actually does not happen. The salary structure progresses on a snail’s pace while the prices of commodities scale new heights. The question is what an individual should do in such a situation. The answer is the perks or the benefits that a company offers with the basic salary. The perks that are supplemented with the basic salary are a source of relief. A job that offers a basic salary of $90,000 per annum without any bonus should be discarded for a job that fetches you $84,000 with monthly benefits.

These perks are significant not just for the money factor but for the important aspects that they account for during our life. For instance the dental insurance takes care for all the expenses related to dental problems that the employee confronts after joining the company. Thus, perks lend the employee a more or less carefree life. They provide him with the biggest assistance i.e. financial and that too in some of the most expensive areas. Hence, perks are unbelievably significant.

But all the companies and businesses do not offer these benefits. Moreover, the kinds of benefits vary from workplace to workplace. Like the bank employees are benefited with medical assistance, travel perks during vacations, insurance etc. Whereas many a multinational companies and corporations provide perks on daily basis that primarily include the expense of food and commutation charges.

Some of the chiefly significant and common benefits are listed below-

• 401(k) plan—is meant to relieve the employee from the burden of taxation by the government. This plan is too fruitful in the long run for it enables the employee to make good stabilized savings throughout his job. This benefit is available only to those working in the private and not the government sector.

• 403(b) plan—is also of tremendous helps in saving money for retirement that is purged of all taxation but only till the time of its withdrawal. For once an individual retires and starts using the money from the 403(b) account, the income through it will be subject to regular taxation. There are certain other differences also between the 401(k) and 403 (b) plans. The 403(b) plan is meant for those who are employed under as per the IRS definition of businesses that are organized and working specifically for the religious, charitable, public safety testing, scientific, literary or educational purposes. Besides this the 401(k) pan allows investment in stocks while the 403(b) does not.

• Insurance facility- many employers bestow their employees with the insurance benefits. These benefits are extremely useful during the period when the employee is incapable to work and needs financial aid by sitting at home. Some companies offer full insurance coverage to their employees while there are others that provide with a comparatively limited coverage to the new recruitments. This coverage however gradually increases with the working years of the worker. Under the insurance facility are also included insurances like- disability insurance, dental insurance, short and long term disability etc.

• Healthcare benefits are included in the compensation package. There are various healthcare packages with different scope. The usual health care plans are HMOs, PPOs, and POSs.

• Vacation packages are also offered annually by some companies. In this benefit the company provides you with a certain amount of money that you can utilize in holidaying with your family. In case a trip is not on your itinerary, the money can act as a saving, as per the rules of the company.

• The Severance Package is active under the situation when the individual loses his job without any of his fault. This is not just extremely helpful to the employee but also saves any kind of legal action against the employer.

• Besides these, many multinational companies serve their efficient and crucial employees with a house, free phone calls and pick and drop facilities.