Are employee benefit costs killing your company? Author and benefits consultant Wendy Lynch says that for many businesses, they are. Lynch spoke last week during an annual benefits seminar conducted by LaMair-Mulock-Condon Co. (LMC), a West Des Moines insurance and benefits agency.

Lynch, co-author of “Who Survives?: How Benefit Costs Are Killing Your Company,” said benefits are effective only when there is a partnership of shared reward and shared responsibility within a company. Employees often don’t realize that every dollar spent on providing benefits comes out of their pay, she said. Employers need to engage their workers as partners so that their view of benefits is in line with the company’s.

“If you look at it that way, then really this is a choice to be made by employees,” Lynch told a group of human resources professionals during the LMC conference. “Would you rather be earning more, or getting a better benefits package? When I hear employees complaining about benefits, I know that they haven’t had the adult conversation.”

LMC provided a free copy of the book to each participant at the conference. Rick DeBartolo, a senior vice president with LMC, said his agency partnered with Lynch because her approach reinforces the agency’s strategies.

“What we have in common with the book is our belief that employees that take care of themselves are more productive, healthier and generally more motivated,” he said. “And the employers that set up their benefits plans according to that are generally more successful.”

A quick checklist of your benefits:

• All employees have an opportunity to earn more than 10 percent higher income (in bonus and profit sharing) by improving their work performance. True or False

• Your absence policies include the following: a combined set of days for paid time off (i.e., vacation and sick time are together, with no separate sick leave) and employees receive less than 100 percent pay during an extended absence, such as short-term disability. True or False

• Your company provides a large portion of employees with relevant and meaningful skills training opportunities each year. True or False

If you answered “false” to all three, your company’s productivity may be as much as 40 percent below what you could be achieving, and benefits costs could be as much as 25 percent higher than they need to be.