Researching employees’ perceptions of benefits communication: A communication inquiry on channel preferences, understanding, decision‐making, and benefits satisfaction

Picherit-Duthler, Gaelle; Freitag, Alan R.

doi:10.1080/08824090409360003

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Satisfaction with employee benefits has, however, been established as one of four key dimensions of overall pay satisfaction, along 709 Employee benefits and organisational justice with pay level, pay raises and pay administration (Heneman and Schwab, 1985;Judge et al, 2010). Phenomena addressed by the small benefits-specific academic literature include benefits communication preferences (Picherit-Duthler and Freitag, 2004;Shields et al, 2009), and benefit-type preferences of employees with differing demographic characteristics (Dencker et al, 2007). Furthermore, the nascent pay transparency literature, which examines the openness and communication of pay information, provides insights into how perceived inadequacies in organisational and supervisor communications surrounding benefits may influence a range of outcomes, including pay satisfaction and the types of organisational justice inferences made by employees (Marasi and Bennett, 2016;Bamberger and Belogolovsky, 2010;Day, 2011).…”

Section: Employee Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Just benefits? Employee benefits and organisational justice

Laundon

Cathcart

McDonald

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose Employee reward is central to contemporary debates about work and employment relations; and in the context of ongoing wage stagnation, benefits represent a growing proportion of total reward value. Past studies have shown that when employees perceive benefits as unfair, this has a negative impact on engagement, performance and retention. Yet no previous studies have explored the components of a benefits system that influence employees’ fairness concerns. Using organisational justice as a theoretical lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine how dimensions of an employee benefits system influence the fairness perceptions of employees. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on a qualitative, inductive case study of the benefits system in a large finance and insurance company, drawing on three data sources: interviews with the company’s benefits managers, organisational documents and open-text responses from a benefits survey. Findings Three dimensions of the benefits system strongly influenced fairness perceptions – constraints on accessing and utilising benefits; prosocial perceptions about the fairness of benefits to third parties; and the transparency of employee benefits. Practical implications The study informs organisations and benefits managers about the important role of supervisors in perceived benefits usability, and how benefits may be managed and communicated to enhance employee fairness perceptions. Originality/value This study makes a conceptual contribution to the benefits literature through a detailed exploration of the type of organisational justice judgements that employees make about benefits; and identifying for the first time prosocial fairness concerns about the impact of benefits on third parties.

show abstract

Section: Employee Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Just benefits? Employee benefits and organisational justice

Laundon

Cathcart

McDonald

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Organizations find themselves in a competitive market, and both future hires and current employees receive help by understanding their total rewards (Picherit-Buthler & Freitag, 2009). When faculty and staff cannot understand, access, or use their total rewards, both the employee and the organization suffer.…”

Section: The Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When faculty and staff cannot understand, access, or use their total rewards, both the employee and the organization suffer. How these benefits are communicated has a major impact on the employee and employer relationship (Picherit-Buthler & Freitag, 2009). It is essential for educational programming and resources to be inclusive and equally accessible to the entire employee population of the university.…”

Section: The Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting Diverse Workforces: As A Change Agent, One Instructional Designer Brings Design Justice to Instructional Design Practice

Lowe

2023

The Journal of Applied Instructional Design

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Design justice offers designers a framework to rethink design processes to center the voice of the learner and bring equity and inclusion to marginalized learners (Constanza-Chock, 2020). This article positions the instructional designer as a change agent through one designer’s narrative and their efforts to carry out the work of equity and inclusion with a diverse employee population in higher education. The case details how an instructional designer shifts a design team from designing “for” learners to designing “with” them through the framework of design justice to support organizations with diverse learner populations.

show abstract

“…With respect to benefits, the amount and quality of benefit communication have been proposed to have direct impacts on employees’ knowledge of their provided benefits (Schnake, 2016) and, as a consequence, to affect employees’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors (Lengnick-Hall & Bereman, 1994). An effective benefit communication program is considered to be important to reduce the gap between employees’ expectations and perceptions regarding this issue (Danehower et al, 1994) and to ensure that employees are aware of the existence of and understand their benefits (Huseman & Hatfield, 1978; Picherit-Duthler & Freitag, 2004). In this sense, Sinclair et al (2005) found that benefit communication quality, which refers to employees’ perceptions of the information about the benefits that are disseminated by the organization, is positively related to employees’ benefit knowledge.…”

Section: Benefits Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benefit Communication and Its Effects on Employees’ Benefit Level Satisfaction: The Multiple Mediating Effects of POS and Benefit Comparison

Pozo

Salazar

Ruiz

et al. 2020

International Journal of Business Communication

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many firms offer employees a broad range of benefits as part of their compensation. However, little attention has been given to the extent to which firms communicate with their employees in relation to such benefits. This study proposes that benefit communication can have both direct and indirect positive effects on employees’ benefit level satisfaction. The effects of benefit communication were examined by means of a survey among 828 employees of different Spanish firms. This study hypothesized and found that benefit communication led to increased benefit level satisfaction. Similarly, this study found that benefit communication can influence benefit level satisfaction through the multiple intermediating effects of employees’ perceived organizational support and employees’ comparison of their benefits with those of referent others. These results imply that academics and practitioners must pay attention to providing adequate benefit communication in order to ensure the effectiveness of benefits.

show abstract

Researching employees’ perceptions of benefits communication: A communication inquiry on channel preferences, understanding, decision‐making, and benefits satisfaction

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Just benefits? Employee benefits and organisational justice

Just benefits? Employee benefits and organisational justice

Supporting Diverse Workforces: As A Change Agent, One Instructional Designer Brings Design Justice to Instructional Design Practice

Benefit Communication and Its Effects on Employees’ Benefit Level Satisfaction: The Multiple Mediating Effects of POS and Benefit Comparison

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About