Retirement plans are slowly being removed by some companies in their employee benefit plan offers. I remember asking about it when I signed my contract with my first company. With a slight frown on her face, the HR staff replied that the company did not offer any. The same was true with my second company.
Constantly reminded by my elders to prepare for retirement as soon as one starts working, I am concerned about that more and more companies are not offering retirement plans anymore. What if my savings would not be enough to cover all of my expenses when I retire? What if I get sick and need a large amount for medications and operations? Given the time value of money, my savings would effectively be smaller by the time I retire.
I envy my father whose retirement plan was pretty good when he started working. He mentioned that his retirement benefits include a pension that is equivalent to his monthly income by the time he retires. That would be more than enough for what my parents need for their monthly living expenses. His retirement plan also includes free medical consultation in his company’s in-house mini-hospital and an allocation for medicine. That’s why he is urging me to look for a company that offers a good retirement plan. But these companies are becoming rare nowadays. Even my father’s company is no longer offering the kind of retirement plan that he has.
Maybe, financial considerations prevent companies from offering generous retirement benefits anymore. But offering such can have significant advantages to their company. It can be a strategy for organizations to attract potential employees. With less and less companies offering such benefits, it can become a recruitment advantage for those that do. Personally, this is one of my considerations in looking for a company.
I hope that companies reconsider their reasons for not offering retirement plans, so that they don’t go extinct. As millennials become wiser in looking for a company and become more concerned about their future, offering this benefit (aside from improving general work conditions) just might be the thing that would prevent them from leaving the company.
Sarah Katrina S. Chan is a Master of Business Administration student at De La Salle University (DLSU). She has been a software engineer for five years, and is currently working at an international IT company. She welcomes comments at [email protected]. The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.
