Employee Benefit Trends in Poland
Employee benefit trends in Poland include challenges around PPK (retirement) enrollment, accessing flu shots, and the improvement in digitalization for employees and insurance companies. These topics, along with mandatory and supplementary employee benefits, were covered in a webinar this October given by Asinta’s employee benefit consulting Partner in the country, MAI CEE.
Primary trends include:
- Challenges for companies in rolling mandatory retirement plans — A current challenge in Poland regarding retirement is starting up the newly required PPK plan. There are only 10 companies who are approved for PPK administration and currently 800,000 companies still need to enroll.
- Quick adaptation to remote work/digitalization — Twenty percent of Polish employees are working remotely now, however, Poland is still not highly digitalized. Many insurers for example require ink signatures and paper copies on their documentation. Some have adopted digital processes that allow employees to enroll online which was not possible a few months ago.
- Limited access to flu shots – In the recent past only 30% of Polish people got flu shots (Europe’s rate is approximately 70% give or take). In Poland there are only 2M flu vaccinations available. Given the possibility of a twin-demic this is a significant issue for Poland.
Other insights include:
- Coverage for dependents – Employer sponsored coverage for dependents depends on the industry, and typically dependent costs are covered for executives. The IT industry may cover dependents at 50%.
- Healthcare networks – ‘Subscription’ medical services in Poland are akin to a limited network in the U.S.
- Medical trend cost – In the past inflation for healthcare has not been an issue in Poland, however this for 2020 it is around 10%.
- Multinational pooling – This is typically not an option for Polish benefits.
This information about employee benefit trends in Poland is provided by MAICEE, Asinta’s employee benefits consulting partner in the country.