Happy Tuesday y’all! It’s been a bit crazy over here so I’ve decided to repost (with minor edits) an old post I made (before we had officially started this newsletter OR the podcast. When we called this a blog (🤣)
Welcome back to Saintly CEO: the Tuesday morning newsletter for business owners whose first objective is to become a saint.
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
Events | Feature Content | 6 Heavenly Hustlers
[read time: ~13 min | word count 2,802]
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Saintly CEO: What Should Employee Benefits Packages Look Like?
We’ve spent a lot of time exploring our divine calling to entrepreneurship. But what about those who are not called into entrepreneurship? Employees — how can we answer our divine calling to them?
So what, then, is our relationship with employees supposed to look like?
We first must acknowledge that without employees, a business cannot function (unless you’re a solopreneur).
Employees are not just laborers or butts in seats; they are human beings deserving of dignity and respect.
As employers, we have a significant role in ensuring that dignity is upheld. Given that humans spend roughly a third of their lives working, it’s crucial to create a healthy work environment, especially from a Catholic perspective.
Just imagine if you had to spend a third of your life in a work environment that constantly pulled you further from your faith by its influence. Not ideal.
Even if our employees are not Catholic, they are human beings who deserve a nurturing and positive work environment.
So — what are the core parts of a healthy working environment? One key aspect is the benefits we provide as employers. While topics like just wages and workplace culture are also critical, today, we’ll focus on employment benefits. (If you believe there are more than 3 core parts, please comment below as we’ll explore each of these topics in the future).
Guiding Principles
As Catholic employers, we must ask ourselves two things.
What benefits would we want as employees?
What do we have a responsibility to offer based on God’s calling to us?
These two principles should guide our decisions and policies.
Now! Let’s get into the good stuff—the brass tacks. What benefits should I consider? Here are some. Of course, you may have ideas for others to offer, but this is a good starting point.
Daily Mass Flexibility: We all need to reach Heaven. Nothing helps us more than receiving The Eucharist. Daily Mass is a huge help in guiding us towards Heaven. On top of this, if our team is well cared for spiritually, if they are nurturing their soul, they are more likely to be practicing virtues. Virtues lead to better treatment of co-workers, customers, family, and even bosses.
Taking Off on Holy Days of Obligation: We often take off on secular holidays, so why not for Holy Days of Obligation? If you’re serious about your faith, you’ll attend mass on those days as it is—why shouldn’t your employees?
I’m convinced that this is one of the biggest levers in our cultural war for God.
(Pro-tip: this is also an opportunity to share the details about the Holy Day. i.e., An opportunity for evangelization.)On-Site Child Care: If you employ many people with both parents working, you should consider on-site child care. If they can bring their child with them to work, it saves a trip and another huge expense. If something goes wrong, they are only steps away from being there for their family.
At this point, it’s also important to ask if you can/should pay one person enough to provide for the needs of the entire family so the other parent can stay home with the children. This might be a better solution and will be discussed when we eventually cover Just Wage Theory.First Home Down Payment Assistance: Having a stable home is something that should not be underrated. First, they are not subject to random eviction by a new landlord who might just decide to hike rent to clear people out. Ownership also fosters stewardship more than renting. You are more likely to contribute to your neighborhood and city if you have set roots down.
It also helps them to start building equity for their own futures. Yes, they may end up moving houses eventually, but at least they have started the accumulation of equity versus just paying rent into an endless hole.Comprehensive Insurance: In the present day, this is really a given. However, do not underestimate the value of providing robust health insurance to your employees. Again, as a recruiter, you’d be surprised how many people refuse to take a big promotion because they are in a role with fully covered health insurance—so it goes in your favor for retention.
Encouraging Openness to Life: This one falls in the right thing to do camp without a lot of apparent benefit to you as an employer. If you encourage your employees to be open to life and not be worried about taking parental leave, you’re showing your respect for the most important aspect of life and society: the family.
There are even companies that pay their employees a one-time bonus for having children.
Again, put yourself in the shoes of an employee; you want to work somewhere that will understand and encourage you to have a big family and not frown upon you taking parental leave again.Parental Leave: In the same manner, a strong parental leave policy for both mothers and fathers is critical. The family must be respected, and the first few months after childbirth are of great importance to the family. Be generous.
Educational Opportunities for Children: Children eventually grow up to enter the workforce. A point of uncertainty in anyone’s growing up is what they will do for work. By allowing the children of your employees to come and learn about the work their parents do, you can help them get exposure to different careers. If you’re able, offering them work opportunities at a young age can help them earn some cash, confidence, and know-how in the workplace. Do not underestimate the feeling of accomplishment from a job well done.
You might even consider using your business connections to help the children of your employees land internships and roles with other businesses in the area. Don’t underestimate the sway you have compared to an average employee. Use your power for good!Family Event Attendance: There’s a soccer game coming up, of course! Find a way to give them off to attend. These moments matter far more than the business.
The hard part is building a culture where everyone understands how to navigate this. Once you do this for one employee, another, perhaps one without children, might complain of unequal treatment. These are the times when you build the culture. You can help them understand that when they are in the same position, you will have the same flexibility for them. Or if they have a different need, they are going to be accommodated while the other individual won’t have a need to do that.
This is the tough stuff! The work is really hard, but if you shape things well, you can build a strong culture.
Matching Almsgiving: Some companies make charitable donations, and some match the donations of their employees to different charities—why not match their almsgiving? It’s a small thing, but it also helps them feel good about giving on Sunday.
Financial Education: If you want to make a huge impact on your employees’ lives, teach them how to fish instead of handing them the fish all the time. There is a huge financial literacy issue, especially in America. There are probably some really cheap courses on Udemy that you can pay for so they can learn the principles of investing and financial literacy.
A Just Wage: You should pay someone a wage that allows them to provide for their family, one that doesn’t require both parents to work. Leaving the raising of children to daycare and schools is, in my opinion, a dangerous thing that risks the core calling we have as married persons, to bring children into the world and raise them in The Faith. Being the reason both parents need to work is not a good look, at least if you can afford to pay better.
Just wage is not in vogue today, with everyone shouting about equal pay, but the truth is, equal pay would only make sense if there were equal needs. There are not.
We see the rising trend of DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids) where people are making huge wages and have no kids; all the while, you’ve got two parents working minimum wage scrapping by. Many of these so-called DINKs are likely the type to complain about inequality while being the primary symbol of it.
Just remember: A just wage is not just what’s acceptable; it’s what you ought to pay that person based on their family’s needs.Continued Education: A main reason people leave a role is for continued learning opportunities. As far as you’re able, you should offer this. It doesn’t always mean ponying up money for another advanced degree. It often means helping find this person’s mentors and allowing them to work on new challenges.
The same theme comes up again: You need to understand your employees on an individual basis so you can know what matters to them. It’s not rocket science (well, unless their interest is rocket science… I’ll leave that in your court); it just takes effort and genuine care for your employees—the same way Jesus cares for each of us individually.Retirement Savings: Again, this is an obvious one, but you have a responsibility to help your employees with it. Part of this comes with financial literacy training, but providing some long-term savings benefits is huge!
I’m not in the position for this yet, so I’m in the theoretical phase, but I love the idea of the employees getting a profit share and upside through the company. If the company does well, we all do well. It aligns the incentives properly.
If you want to go all out, you can develop a pension system, these can be tricky to manage though so you’d want to speak with an expert about that.Annual Leave/PTO: Paid time off for vacation and trips is important. Many studies show that time off actually makes people more productive. However, I don’t want to reduce offering time off to your employees to a ‘productivity hack’ for running your business because it’s more than that.
The truth is, your employees are human (I hope), and the human soul also needs recreation. It’s important to provide them with the space to do that, in some instances, in larger quantities. Again, it’s not about doing the minimum but doing what is right and good for the human soul.Spousal Protections: If we are going to ensure families only need one person working out of the house, we must provide spousal/family protection. This is often in the form of disability insurance, life insurance, and perhaps some of your own out-of-pocket expenses.
Many households maintain both parents working because they are worried about what will happen if one person is laid off or has an accident. This is, in many ways, giving into the temptation of anxiety (in other words, failing to trust in the Lord), but it has some level of credence. Why not remove that temptation by offering explicit spousal protections in the event of something bad happening to the employee?Spiritual Direction: Since our ultimate goal is to get to heaven, we ought to allow our employees to attend spiritual direction. This may mean offering time during the day to attend because priests have tight schedules, or it could mean sponsoring it. If you have a large company, perhaps you can sponsor a priest to provide spiritual direction to all of your employees on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. I’m not sure how this works in practice, but I’m sure if you feel called to it, you’ll find a way with the help of The Spirit.
One final thing I’ll re-highlight is that you shouldn’t underestimate the number of things you can do that only cost you time. As a business owner, you will have access to more doors than most of your employees. Be willing to use that influence to open doors on their behalf where you can. You were not given your position and state in life for only your own benefit. God elevated you here, and you must use that position responsibly and for the benefit of others.
The Moat to Your Business Castle
While these benefits are part of our duty as Catholic employers, they also offer a competitive edge in the business world.
(A word of warning: do not do these things simply for the ‘edge’ it will give you. Do them because they are the right thing to do and because it is a means of respecting human dignity.)
In my experience as a recruiter, I’ve seen candidates choose roles with lower salaries because of the superior benefits offered. In a tight talent market, offering a robust benefits package can help attract top talent.
Once you attract this talent, maintaining these efforts can create a strong reputation. Companies known for treating their employees well often find that more people want to work for them than they can hire. This “talent moat” makes hiring easier and helps retain the best employees.
Benefits are a key ingredient in building a talent attraction and retention machine. By treating our employees with the dignity and respect they deserve, we not only fulfill our moral obligations but also build a stronger, more competitive business.
Theme: We have seen the theme of individuality several times in today’s example. In the same way, God deals with each of us individually, we ought to deal with our employees individually as well.
In summary, Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in being generous when it comes to providing benefits. Do not do only what is common in the market; do what you believe to be right for your employees—what you believe a Catholic-run business would provide.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
PS: What did we miss? Any other benefit ideas? Comment below 💭 👇
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What does this look like if you don't employ American citizens, though? Do we follow the rules of where we live or the rules of the country the employees live in?