Abstract
Like most other areas of HR, employee benefits are not immune to the catastrophic effects of the
recession. In a bid to keep up with business strategy HR managers have implemented several
plans, categorized in this study under ‗Hard‘ and ‗Soft‘ employee benefit policies, which range
cost reducing initiatives such as cutting benefits, to employee motivating and retaining tactics
such as introducing ‗quirky‘ and ‗fun‘ benefits in order to mitigate the impact of the recession on
employees.
This study also aims to shed some light on the employee benefits industry in Ireland and
highlight the main benefits offered by Irish employers. To create a snapshot of the Irish
employee benefits industry it was necessary to i) set the scope and boundaries of what could be
considered as an employee benefit, ii) understand who the main players in the employee benefit
industry are, iii) map out the possible service lines.
The available employee benefits service lines were categorized into two major types (Simple
service line and extended service line). Following this an actor abstraction was also created
showcasing the typical actors involved in the employee benefits industry, that is, the Employee,
Employer, Benefit Consultant, Benefit Technology Provider, and Benefit Supplier. Next a search
to find out the main benefit offerings provided by Irish firms was carried out.
It was found that the Pension, Healthcare benefits are the most offered benefits and could
arguably be the declared as the benefits employers bank on to attract, retain and motivate its
employees. Meanwhile, it was suggested that employee benefits may not be as important to Irish
employees anyway as they are more appreciative of the fact that they are in employment than
anything else. Author keywords: Employee benefits, recession, HRM, Ireland
