Build to Enough

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Keila Hill-Trawick: Hello. You're listening to Build to Enough, a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to scale at their own pace. I'm your host, Kaela Traywick, and I'll be your chief storyteller and cheerleader in a world that glorifies endless expansion, we're tuning out the noise and discussing the beauty of enough. Each episode will dive into inspiring stories, practical insights, and strategies to cultivate sustainable success on your [00:00:30] own terms. So whether you're a solopreneur, small business owner, or aspiring entrepreneur, get ready for a refreshing take on the entrepreneurial journey. This is build to enough.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Hello and welcome back to Build to Enough. Okay, so when you're a really small team, it can be hard to feel like you can be competitive with benefits. And I get why they seem very expensive. Um, cumbersome administratively. And it can feel like you don't even know where to start [00:01:00] in terms of what you could offer a team. But especially as we're figuring out hiring and getting the best people on our team, it's a really important way to attract and retain top talent. And as I've said before, on small teams, everybody's got to be excellent. And so to the extent that we can get the best person in because we're offering what is valuable to them, the better off we are. The other thing is you have the opportunity to offer unique, personalized benefits that a lot of corporations either can't [00:01:30] or don't care enough to do.

Keila Hill-Trawick: And so today, we want to dig into how you can create benefits for your small teams, what options are out there and what resources you might be able to take advantage of in order to provide these really cool perks to the people who work for you. All right, let's dig in. When I started Little Fish, I did not think that I was going to be able to offer benefits like that. Felt like so far beyond, um, something that I would be able to offer as I stayed small because I knew that I didn't want a big [00:02:00] corporation. I just figured that was something that I was going to have to miss out on, and I didn't look into it early on. Over time, obviously that has changed. Little fishes team now gets health benefits, 401 (K) match and some other perks that we'll talk about later on in this episode. But I just want to give you that as an example to say we can stay small and still offer things to our teams that are prevalent in bigger companies. Now, we talked about this some in the intro, but there are some challenges to small businesses [00:02:30] offering benefits. Like I said, it can be costly and it can be administratively cumbersome, but it can also be really difficult to make sure that the benefits that you want to offer actually align with the company culture and the team needs.

Keila Hill-Trawick: It can also be hard to figure out what you give when you've got a small team and a lot of voices potentially telling you what they're interested in and whether or not you can meet all of those. We've also got limited resources, right monetarily and team wise. It is often falling on the firm owner to really [00:03:00] figure out what we're going to offer and how. So? Unlike a large corporation that's got a whole department that's dedicated to this, it is just us. And so it can feel like something that feels a bit overwhelming to be able to offer. Now, when I think about benefits, I'm thinking about a few things in terms of core benefits. Obviously there's health, right? Since healthcare is tied up with our work, being able to support the people that work with us by providing some opportunity for them to have health benefits either paid [00:03:30] for or reimbursed, is going to be really important. Of course, retirement plans are next in line because again, those are also tied to work, and a lot of workers now are really looking for an opportunity to be able to invest in their retirement with funds outside of their own. Finally paid time off. Everybody that works with and for us are human beings. They want to be able to spend time doing other stuff that is not at work. And so figuring out vacation, sick leave, personal days, and parental [00:04:00] leave are all kind of under this bucket of how do we make sure that people can take time off to take time for themselves and their families, and still get a check while doing so? In addition to those core benefits, there's some supplemental benefits that you can think about.

Keila Hill-Trawick: So wellness programs, including mental health support and gym memberships. How can we make sure that our entire minds and bodies are being taken care of? In addition to and outside of work? Flexible work arrangements are all the rage right now, especially because [00:04:30] we have so much in remote and hybrid opportunities, but also flexible work hours. How can we make sure that our teams are able to work within timeframes that work best for them, while still serving the business needs and professional development opportunities? This includes trainings, certifications, courses, anything that we can do to help them get better at their jobs, both their roles and ways that they can improve the businesses. Then we see all kinds of custom perks. This might be monthly stipends, childcare [00:05:00] support, tech allowances, book allowances. You've got kind of the world at your fingertips in terms of things that you offer that may not fit into the custom or the core benefits that are typically being offered, but really align with what you want for your company and your team. In terms of employee benefits this year, you've seen a lot around hybrid and remote work, which has transformed the landscape of employee benefits as people are thinking about what's important to them when they [00:05:30] work for companies, that is at the top of the list, not having to commute to work or go into an office.

Keila Hill-Trawick: And if you're a small team that's trying to support remote employees, there are a couple of ways that you can do that that we've also done two. One is a home office stipend. People who are working from home may not have the setup to be able to do that really well. And when you don't have an office for them to come to, they've got to kind of recreate that at home. To the extent that you can support that financially, they will definitely appreciate it. And this can be anything from monitors [00:06:00] and keyboards to desk or equipment, internet reimbursements. It is a small price to pay for us to be able to help offset some of the costs that we are requiring for our employees to work with us. Yes, I know that they're also watching Netflix and playing games on their phone with the same internet, but you're requiring it to work for you. Maybe one of the things that you could offer us to help pay for it, and then a final one that I've seen come up a lot is the offering of co-working spaces [00:06:30] in terms of reimbursements or covering the cost for your employees, for those that can't work from home because it's not really feasible, or just prefer to get out into the world.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Being able to support this on a regular basis so that they can still go into an office and maybe interact with people, is, again, a relatively inexpensive perk that you can offer to your small team. Another thing that is coming up a lot now is mental health and wellness. So it's especially because of recent global events and [00:07:00] not so recent global events. Everybody is a little bit on edge, and to the idea that we can really help to make affordable wellness initiatives within our own firms. You can offer things like virtual counseling or therapy sessions. There are memberships that you might be able to cover or again, reimburse for your employees if that's something that they want to take advantage of. Meditation apps come up a lot, and you want to make sure that it's something that your team will actually take advantage of. But even setting [00:07:30] aside a time to say, hey, every day we are recommending that you take 30 minutes aside to meditate. And here's the app that we pay for to make that easier for you. I've seen companies do things like fitness challenges. If you are competitive, it's really cool to be able to see how much time or effort that you and your team can put into really bettering your bodies.

Keila Hill-Trawick: And then gym memberships, fitness equipment like Apple Watches all the way up to peloton, or reimbursements or partial [00:08:00] reimbursements to help your team get into that, um, Mindset. Now again, all of these don't have to be included, and small teams have to determine which way is the best way to really interact with their teams. But these are ways that go beyond the normal and show up as really important, um, ways to interact with your employees that they have said are valuable as well. Now, there are some ways that you can be cost effective around this. Accountants are always looking at the bottom line. And so we [00:08:30] want to make sure that you're maximizing your value on a budget. There's some group buying strategies so you can partner with other accounting firms or small businesses for better rates. Maybe you are part of a local co-op or a local community of small businesses that all want to offer something similar. Maybe you can go in and get a discount or a lower rate because there are more people participating. You can also offer tiered benefits packages, so maybe we will give you will automatically include these things. [00:09:00] The next tier up is that we will pay for a portion of it. And the next tier up is you pay for it and we reimburse. You've got a variety of different stepping stones that you can offer to your team in terms of benefits.

Keila Hill-Trawick: That allows you to both manage your budget constructively, but also offer them things that they'll actually want to take advantage of. Some other low cost, high impact perks are things like recognition programs. Making sure that people feel like what they're doing is being recognized to the team, but also maybe in the form of [00:09:30] a gift card. Team outings, especially if you're local or team retreats where everybody can get together and you know that you're going to have some in-person, non-working time and then making sure that you're rewarding for milestones, whether that is work, anniversaries, birthdays, new babies and new marriages. But also as your team grows and is more consistent, you may want to offer things like sabbaticals and extra PTO to reward them for their hard work and loyalty to your company. Now [00:10:00] you have to make sure again that this is aligning with your company culture. Make sure that what you're offering is what your team actually wants. It makes no difference if you are offering an amazing benefits package, if your team doesn't want to take advantage of it because what they value and what you value aren't the same things. So, for example, at Little fish, in addition to the health benefits, we also offer things like sick and sad days. I do not count it against the team if they're sick or if they just can't do it for that day, I wanted [00:10:30] to make sure that they had room to be human beings and also empower them to be trusted with the fact that I know that you'll let me know when things need to be done, or if somebody else needs to cover something, but that doesn't mean it has to be you if you don't have the capacity.

Keila Hill-Trawick: We also closed for five weeks out of the year, two weeks at the end of tax season for spring break, one week at the end of the summer, and two weeks at the end of the year for winter break. Those are automatically built in and paid for everybody who works with us. Flexible work hours where you can start and stop [00:11:00] with some overlapping hours with our core team hours. But you have the ability to work at a time that works best for you. We have an annual company retreat that is all expenses paid, in addition to a 401 (K) match and internet reimbursement. Now that seems like a pretty long list for some of you. Again, we didn't start with all of this. Little by little, I started figuring out what would make the most sense, what would work with the business, and what the team actually wanted. So if you're ready to develop a benefits package, what should you even be thinking about? [00:11:30] Well, we already covered the first one, which is assess your team's wants and needs.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Ask your team what do you want? What do you think is most valuable? Prioritize the core benefits like PTO, health benefits, and retirement. But ask your team what else that they would be interested in. What are they paying for or not paying for that they would appreciate as part of one of their perks and the benefits. The second thing is, once you've selected what core benefits you're going to cover, start doing the research on them. There are so many health and retirement plans [00:12:00] available for small teams now that you can take advantage of, and you can build a customized PTO policy that is in compliance with what states require, and also in compliance with what your business and clients need. Make sure when you get beyond core benefits, you start thinking about those supplemental benefits that are inexpensive or low cost, but really make a difference in somebody that's working with you. And then maximize your budget. Make sure that you have a specific set aside for what you're going to pay or offer for benefits, [00:12:30] and that you maximize maximize what you're offering. Within that, look for group buying opportunities and tiered benefits so that you don't feel like you spent everything on one benefit and are unable to offer more to your team. And then finally review and adjust regularly.

Keila Hill-Trawick: This is not a set it and forget it. As your team grows and as it constricts, you'll find that some of the things that were really important before are no longer beneficial, and some things that you started with need to be expanded. Make sure that you're looking at that on a regular [00:13:00] basis, so that you can create a benefits offering that really supports your team and allows new people who are even looking at you as a place to work. As somewhere that's worth their time in applying for. Thank you so much for listening today about benefits. Would love to hear from you. If you've got questions on what you're doing in terms of benefits, and whether it feels like the right fit or how little fish is doing it, shoot us an email at podcast at Little Fish Accountingconferences.com and if you would like to watch this instead [00:13:30] of just listening to it, check out our YouTube channel where you can see videos of this episode and all prior episodes available to you now. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Build to Enough. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the love with your fellow entrepreneur friends, and make sure to sign up for the Build to Enough newsletter. The link is in the show notes. Stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to redefine success one intentional step at a time.