When you’re creating employee benefits plans in Ghana, taking an organized and informed approach can help your company stay competitive and compliant.
About your Ghana employee benefits plan
Benefits are one of many ways you can achieve success as a company. Your benefits package can encourage job seekers to apply for your open positions during recruitment, making it easier to build your team.
These provisions can also elevate morale in the workplace and increase retention. Employees who feel supported are more likely to stay with your company. Higher retention rates can reduce onboarding costs and help you solidify an experienced workforce.
Potential benefits include:
- Private health insurance
- Holiday bonuses
- Housing
- Meal vouchers
- Private pension (under Provident Fund)
Required benefits in Ghana
While you can leverage benefits to make your company competitive in the job market, they’re also crucial to ensure compliance. Ghana’s labor laws require employers to provide:
- Pension and social insurance contributions
- Annual paid leave
- Public holidays off
- Paid maternity leave
Designing Ghana employee benefits plans
The design process for your benefits plan may be challenging in a new country, but an organized approach can help you achieve your goals. These steps apply to any market.
1. Evaluate your finances
It’s important to evaluate how much money you’re willing to dedicate to employee provisions before you start choosing benefits. Consider your revenue and expenses as you create a budget during this initial stage.
2. Research other companies
You must understand the labor market if you want to compete within it. Research other employers in the area to learn about their benefits packages and identify commonalities across companies. Benefits that appear frequently will inform job seekers’ expectations.
3. Select benefits
With everything you’ve learned, you can create a benefits plan. Allocate funding to the required benefits first. You can use the remaining resources to offer additional provisions in your benefits packages.
Average cost of benefits
Since every company pays a different amount for benefits, an average isn’t the most helpful metric for your planning. Elements such as industry, location, and size can affect how much an employer is willing to pay for benefits.
Creating a unique budget is the best way to guide your spending. If you dedicate a percentage of your revenue to benefits spending, your budget will easily scale with your company. As you bring in more revenue, you’ll have more funding for employee provisions.
How to calculate employee benefits
Calculations for provisions such as allowances, stipends, and bonuses are straightforward. You can set an amount and divide it evenly among your team. Other benefits, such as housing and company cars, may come with complexities such as utility payments and fuel pricing.
To calculate required benefits, you can turn to the labor laws for guidance. For social insurance, employers are responsible for 13 percent of employee earnings. Employees contribute 5.5 percent of their earnings.
How are employee benefits taxed in Ghana?
Generally, benefits in cash and in kind are considered income and subject to tax. Some benefits are exempt from income tax, including:
- Redundancy pay
- Passage to and from the country for appointment or termination of employment
- Reimbursement for medical, health, or dental insurance where all employees receive the same insurance benefit
Employee health benefits
Most of Ghana’s healthcare funding comes from out-of-pocket payments. Employers are not required to provide insurance schemes for employees, but many choose to offer them as fringe benefits.
Choose G-P for employee benefits planning in Ghana
G-P’ global employment platform helps you build and scale an international team quickly and easily, ensuring all benefits offered to candidates are compliant and in line with local regulations. Learn more about our platform and request a proposal today.