As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, it is leaving behind changes in the benefits that employers are offering to their employees, according to the Society of Human Resources Management. A new survey of HR professionals by the group finds that the number of employers offering various family support and leave benefits has “increased significantly.”

“In today’s job market, employer-sponsored benefits act as a key recruitment tool, but they’re also pivotal to the employee experience, and thus to retention, satisfaction and engagement,” said Alex Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP, chief knowledge officer at SHRM. “Employers are listening to their employees about their own wants and needs, but also the needs of their families.”

And if you aren’t listening, you could be losing applicants and employees to competitors inside and outside the industry that are.

The 2023 SHRM Employee Benefits Survey, released last week during the group’s annual meeting, was conducted online Jan. 17 to March 8, with eligible responses coming from 4,217 participants representing organizations of all sizes across the United States.

The association said that the need that workers had for heightened family support during the pandemic seems to have evolved into long-term parental benefits now offered by many employers. The share of organizations offering paid maternity and paternity (up 5 percentage points each, to 40% and 32%, respectively) or parental leave (up 6 percentage points to 39%), as well as adoption leave (up 6 percentage points to 34%), increased significantly.

Also, 54% of the surveyed companies now offer onsite lactation facilities, although SHRM said this new offering may be due to the December 2022 enactment of stronger federal protections and accommodations for women who pump breast milk during the workday.

Almost every organization represented in the survey offers paid vacation (99%) and sick leave (95%), with 19% of employers also offering designated paid mental health days separate from regular sick time.

Beyond those basics, paid leave to enable employees to care for immediate family members became slightly more common in 2023, with 33% of responding employers saying they now offer it. Additionally, 18% of participants said that they provide paid leave for workers to care for members of their extended family.

Also, 83% of responding employers provide unpaid leave to care for immediate family as defined by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, and 27% allow employees to extend the length of their unpaid leave beyond state or federal requirements. Thirty-six percent of participating organizations allow employees to take unpaid leave to care for extended family. And the offering of paid foster child leave increased 3 percentage points, to 25%, compared with last year.

Overall, though, healthcare benefits top employers’ list of most important benefits to offer, with leave-related benefits and retirement-related benefits tying for second place. For more survey results, see this page.

Is it time to review your benefits program?

Lois A. Bowers is the editor of McKnight’s Senior Living. Read her other columns here.