The long, strung-out debate about which of the organisation’s resources is most valuable has now been settled. In today’s knowledge-based economy, there is no question that employees are the most critical asset of an organisation. Employees are the driving force behind the organisation’s success. They design and build the products, promote and sell them in the market, call the clients and offer support to the product users. This is to say that without your employees, your organisation cannot meet its goals and objectives.
Compensation and benefits are essential to employee satisfaction at the workplace, and directly impact employee motivation and performance. Most organisations have prioritised hiring and retaining competent and talented employees. This is achieved through offering competitive compensation, benefits packages and a conducive working environment. Compensation and benefits to employees include wages and salaries, social security benefits, educational incentives, wellness benefits and insurance.
In Ghana, the most typical forms of employee insurance include health, workmen’s compensation and life insurance. A health insurance policy covers employees’ medical needs during illness, injury or accident. Some employers extend the cover to employees’ immediate family members – like spouses, children and dependent parents.
The workmen’s compensation insurance is taken by employers to provide compensation for employees who may suffer personal injury or illness in the course of their work. It also provides compensation to families of the employee in case of death of the employee, if the death is attributable to an injury sustained or illness contracted on the job. In Ghana, employers sign onto workmen’s compensation insurance to cover their liabilities under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1987 (P.N.D.C.L. 187).
Life insurance on the other hand protects the assured; the person covered under the policy against life’s eventualities, such as death and disability caused by injury or disease.
Most importantly, people-centred employers take life insurance policies to cover their employees in the event of critical illness, disability or death. These policies are often Group Term Life Insurance, which provides coverage to all employees for a period. Usually, the life insurance term lasts for as long as the employee remains with and works for their employer.
Unlike the workmen’s compensation insurance, which covers only death or injury resulting directly from performance of the job, Group Term Life Insurance covers critical illness, disability or death regardless of the cause unless expressly excluded in the policy conditions. One of the best Group Term Life Insurance policies is the Employee Security Plan, underwritten by StarLife Assurance Limited Company.
Employee Security Plan
The StarLife Employee Security Plan (ESP) is a comprehensive Group Term Life Insurance policy that complements and enhances an employer’s efforts to provide employees with a wholesome benefits package. This policy mutually benefits the employer and employee at a competitively minimal cost. This policy goes beyond the standard cover that most Group Term Life Insurance policies offer, and includes complementary and optional benefits which protect what matters most to employees – their families. It provides cover for:
- Death;
- Accidental total and permanent disability;
- Temporary and permanent disability;
- Dreaded disease or critical illness;
- Medical expenses; and
- Workmen’s compensation
This policy has complimentary covers for a casket or coffin and the death of a spouse or child. It also has an optional benefit of extended family cover.
The chart below illustrates the policy’s various benefits.
Finally, striving to recruit and retain the best talents in the job market cannot be achieved only through offering high salaries, wages and other direct benefits. Employers must also consider the protection of their workers against life’s eventualities like injury, illness and death – which the Employee Security Plan offers.
Life insurance does not offer protection for only employees but extends it to their families in those critical moments. It projects the employer as responsible and caring among existing employees and their families, other stakeholders and the community at large. It will also motivate existing employees to do their best, knowing their employer cares about them and their families.
>>>the writer is Head, Strategy & Performance Monitoring, StarLife Assurance
