Are Your Benefits Fit for Purpose?

Let me start with a confession. When I read most company benefits lists, I want to scream into a pillow.

20 Days holiday. Pizza Friday. A Christmas party that everyone's already trying to get out of. And the classic line at the bottom of the job advert: "we offer a competitive benefits package."

Do you though? Really?

In my years of recruiting, I've seen more "competitive benefits packages" than I can count, and most of them are anything but. They're dusty, untouched, last reviewed in 2011, and increasingly irrelevant to the people you're trying to hire.

And the data backs this up. The CIPD's 2026 Reward Survey found that 22% of UK organisations have no stated objective at all for what their benefits spend is meant to achieve. None. Just a list of perks, slowly going stale.

Let's talk about it.

Most Employers Don't Even Know What Their Benefits Are

Here's the bit that genuinely surprises me, and it shouldn't by now. When I ask hiring managers to walk me through their benefits package, the vast majority can't. They reach for a document, ask HR, or send me a link to an internal page they haven't looked at in two years.

This isn't just my experience. Recent research found that only 53% of UK workers actually understand their benefits, and only 57% are even aware of the full list their employer offers. On average, just 40% of employee benefits get used.

Think about what that means.

Your benefits package is one of your most powerful talent attraction tools, and the people doing the hiring can't articulate it. If they can't tell me, they certainly can't tell a candidate. And if they can't tell a candidate, the candidate assumes there's nothing much worth knowing.

In a market where good people have options, your benefits should be at the front of every conversation, not buried in a handbook nobody reads. If your hiring managers can't list your top five benefits without checking, that's a problem worth fixing this week.

The "Competitive Benefits Package" That Isn't

When I ask employers what their benefits look like, I usually get the same list. 25 days holiday plus bank holidays. Statutory pension. Sick pay after probation. Maybe a death-in-service policy. Possibly a Christmas bonus that varies year to year and isn't guaranteed.

That's not a benefits package. That's the legal minimum with a bow on it.

There's a real feast or famine pattern out there. Some employers are genuinely generous, others are still operating on benefits packages that haven't been touched in a decade, and most have no idea where they sit on that spectrum.

A few months ago I placed a senior candidate who was genuinely shocked when the offer came through with 20 days standard holiday. Twenty. For a senior hire, in 2026. The employer didn't think anything of it, it was what they'd always offered, and nobody had pushed back.

We managed to negotiate it up to 25, which is firmly the market standard now. CIPD data confirms 49% of UK organisations now offer 25 or more days excluding bank holidays, and senior or executive norms typically cluster at 30 days plus bank holidays. But the more interesting part of my candidate's story is what happened next. That conversation prompted the employer to review holiday entitlement across the entire business. One candidate asking the question, properly, opened up a much bigger piece of work that should have been done years ago.

That's the bit that should give every employer pause. If a benefit is so out of step with the market that a candidate flinches at the offer stage, what message is that sending to the people already in the building?

The Copy-Paste Job Advert Trap

Then there's the issue of benefits being advertised incorrectly. This happens more than you'd think and it's almost always down to the copy-paste habit.

A few months back, a client of mine had a job advert running with "private healthcare" listed as a benefit. Sounded great. Genuinely attractive perk. The only problem? When HR saw the live advert, they had to flag that private healthcare was only offered to the senior leadership team. The hiring manager had pulled the benefits list from an old internal document and assumed it applied across the board. It didn't.

That kind of thing isn't malicious. But it is dangerous. Candidates who apply, interview, and accept on the basis of a benefit they're not actually entitled to will leave the moment they realise. And they'll tell other candidates why. Trust takes a long time to build and a single dodgy job advert to lose.

If you haven't audited your live job adverts against what your business actually offers, today is a good day to start. Get HR in the room. Read what you're publishing. Make sure it's true.

What Candidates Actually Want Now

The benefits candidates value most have shifted significantly in the last five years, and a lot of businesses haven't kept up.

Pension contributions above the statutory minimum. Real ones. The 3% employer auto-enrolment minimum doesn't cut it any more for senior hires who are thinking seriously about retirement. The current credibility floor is closer to 6%, and competitive employers are at 8% or more.

Genuine flexibility. Not "we offer flexible working" followed by a job description that demands 9 to 5 in the office. Actual flexibility that lets people manage their lives. I have MANY candidates who are not interested in a vacancy unless there is genuine flexibility. The CIPD found that around 1.1 million UK workers changed jobs in the past year purely because of inflexible working arrangements. Hays UK 2026 data shows 49% of professionals would not accept roles without flexibility, and 53% would take a pay cut for better work-life balance. Read that again, then read it once more.

Proper holiday. 25 days plus bank holidays is fine for entry level. For senior or experienced hires, 28 to 30 days is increasingly the expectation. The ability to buy or sell additional holidays is also more often asked about now.

Time to recharge. Birthday off. A duvet day. The Christmas shutdown that doesn't eat into annual leave.

Health support that actually means something. With NHS waiting lists sitting at over 7 million, private medical insurance has gone from a perk to something candidates actively look for. Among large employers, 70% now offer Private Medical Insurance. Among SMEs, just 17 to 18% do. That gap is felt at offer stage.

Mental health support that goes beyond a generic employee assistance program (EAP). The honest reality is that only 3 to 5% of eligible employees ever access their EAP. If your wellbeing offering starts and ends with a phoneline nobody calls, it isn't really an offering.

Development budget. Candidates, particularly the good ones, want to know you'll invest in them. A few hundred pounds a year ringfenced for training, conferences, or professional memberships goes a long way. This comes up a lot in my conversations. Just last week an HR Business Partner was telling me that the reason she left her last employer was due to the fact that they didn't "believe" that studying for the CIPD was necessary for them to do the job.

Notice what's not on that list? Free fruit. Pizza. A pool table. Beer Friday. Recent UK research ranked free Friday drinks 38th in employee-valued perks. Yet 41% of employers still proudly advertise them. The novelty perks that dominated job adverts a decade ago aren't impressing anyone any more.

The Cumbria Reality Check

If you're recruiting in this region, there's an extra layer to think about.

A gym membership is a lovely benefit if there's a gym within twenty miles of where your employee lives. A cycle-to-work scheme is brilliant if your office isn't down a single-track road with no pavement. A "central location with great transport links" doesn't apply when the nearest bus stop is two villages away.

Benefits should reflect the lives the people doing the job actually live. In Cumbria, that often means mileage allowances that cover real fuel costs, working from home options that recognise rural commutes, and family-friendly policies that go beyond the legal minimum. Worth knowing too: the North East has the lowest hybrid working rate of any English region at 22%, and Yorkshire and the Humber sits at 26%. If you can offer genuine flexibility in this part of the country, you stand out instantly. Most of your competitors aren't.

The Review Nobody Does

Here's my honest tip. When did you last sit down, properly, and review your benefits against what your competitors are offering and what your candidates are asking for?

Not glanced at. Reviewed. Compared. Costed. Updated.

If the answer is "a few years ago" or "when we set them up", that's your starting point. Benefits packages need a proper annual review, the same way you'd review pricing, suppliers, or insurance. They're a key part of your offer to the market, and if you're not paying attention to them, candidates are paying attention for you.

Talk to your people. Ask them what they actually use, what they'd value more of, what they'd happily swap. You'll be surprised how often the most expensive benefits are the least appreciated, and the cheapest ones make the biggest difference.

What This Means in Practice

If you're struggling to attract candidates, struggling to retain them, or losing out to competitors at the offer stage, your benefits are worth a hard, honest look. They might be sending a message you don't intend. That you haven't kept up. That you don't really know what your people want. That you're hoping a competitive salary will paper over the cracks.

It usually doesn't.

The good news is that getting this right doesn't always mean throwing money at the problem. Often it means knowing what you offer, communicating it clearly, auditing what's being advertised, and quietly updating the things that have become embarrassing.

If you'd like to talk through how your benefits package compares to what candidates in your sector are actually asking for, drop me a message. It's one of the most useful conversations I have with employers.

Take this further

If this post made you wince a bit, the new Foxgroves Benefits Health Check is for you. A free, practical 2026 review tool that walks you through your package section by section and tells you where you really sit against the market. Download it here: