Summer). Communicating employee benefits: Directions for future research

Organizations throughout this country invest enormous amounts of money in their fringe benefit programs, expecting such returns on in-vestment as attracting and holding good employees, improving morale and productivity, and simply keeping the union out. Unfortunately, these returns are not forthcoming, quite often because of inadequate communication of the benefit program to employees. This article pre-sents a model of benefit communication which is intended to describe the process as it typically occurs. It also discusses specific problems inherent in the communication process and suggests several directions for research in benefit communication. According to recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce statistics, fringe benefits payments in organizations throughout this coun-try during 1975 amounted to 35.4 percent of total payroll. In dollar figures, this translates to more than $3.00 per hour, or al-most $4,000 per employee per year in indirect compensation.