I read somewhere that the first and last three sentences of an article stick with people’s memory most. So, I’ll cut to the chase.

1. NO. Employers are not required to get their employees insurance. But if you’re an employer, I sure hope you would.

Employment is kind of like marriage, you see. You enter into a company, hoping to get exactly what was promised to you, and expect to have a long, interdependent relationship with your employer. You, the employee, work to the best of your abilities day in and day out, to somehow contribute to the company’s growth. In return, your employer does his or her best to provide you with what you need, to support your growth as a person and as a professional. Employment is teamwork; it’s a mutually-invested relationship like that of a husband and wife – wouldn’t you agree?

If you look at things in this light, wouldn’t it be the most sensitive gesture to think more for your people? To think beyond just paying them salary which helps them stabilize their present and think more about their future – how they will retire, the quality of life they’ll have after they retire, and what you can do to help them go through that transition more smoothly?

If you are someone, an employer, who would want to secure your employees’ future, you would get them insurance.

What Does It Mean To Be Insured?

When you’re insured, a number of benefits are entitled for you depending on what kind of insurance you have. There are many kinds, after all. It could be for your health, car, life, house, property, or retirement. The number of insurance types basically stretches as far as all the things people hold dear. Sometimes, what is insured is an object as in the case of a car or a house. Other times, what is insured is something more important – your health, your life, and your future.

Being insured means that you can face whatever’s coming ahead of you with much courage and confidence. We often talk about our fears with our peers and counsellors. How we are afraid of heights or terrified of clowns or anguished by the thought of being alone in an elevator. What we don’t know is that our greatest fears lie in the unknown. What we don’t see, hear, touch, or know leaves us with anxious feelings that oftentimes overwhelm our own person. This engulfs us with paranoia and affects how we live our everyday lives – including how we perform our jobs.

Are you a construction worker? How often do you fear getting into a serious accident that’ll leave you incapacitated? How does it affect you and your confidence in your job?

Or are you a health assistant? How often is it that you fear getting infected of some dreaded, irreversible, chronic disease that might as well change your way of life entirely? How do you deal with working in such a (health) hazardous environment?

In my years of observation, of helping employees and companies work out demands for insurances, I have come to find that what workers feel most anxious of isn’t getting sick, injured, disabled, or incapacitated. What they fear most is the thought of being unable to work, unable to provide for their families, and unable to fend for even just themselves. The thought of becoming useless and unproductive, of becoming a liability, is what scares them most.

And I don’t blame them for it. Nor can you. If this were to happen to me, I would be haunted by the same feeling. For those of us who has the means, we should provide for these people. Not just provide them salary for their day-to-day existence but to provide them with security, with a future.

It isn’t too much to ask now, isn’t it? Starting a good pension plan or getting your employees health insurance is a small of kindness that will surely pay forward – or in this case, pay back. When you establish a healthy and considerate relationship with the people who are the very reason your company is still running, you get rewarded handsomely. The reward may not be monetary (well, not directly), but it would be something far greater than that.

You will be rewarded with amplified loyalty, undying trust, and genuine honesty. And as an employer, these things are more than you can ever ask for. After all, a business can only soar or fall depending on how it’s managed. Good management keeps employees happy. And in turn, happy employees will keep the management good.

Never, and I do mean never, underestimate what a good employer-employee relationship can do for your company.

What If I Still Don’t Want To Give My Employees’ Insurance?

Well, all I can say is that it’s your call to make. Like I said right from the very start, it isn’t illegal to not provide employees with insurance. All I said was that you should if you could.

Insurance may not be mandatory but it sure gives your employees one BIG reason to stay with your company. People are your assets. They’re basically the air your company breathes. Without people, you wouldn’t even have a company. All that’s left is you – and probably your very big building.

You can’t run a company by yourself now, can you? And you also can’t force people to keep working for you. But you can definitely encourage them to do so. All you have to do is invest some of your profit on your people. As I said, people are assets. You should know by now that investing more on your assets can go a long way.

Secure your employees’ future and they will secure your company’s future. It’s a simple give and take relationship – just like marriage.