BeneHits! – 5 most popular employee benefits in Poland

1. Picture of health – Basic Package in Private Healthcare Company 68%

While the Polish government does offer its citizens basic healthcare, this might not be the best option for everyone. After all, the time you have to wait to book an appointment, as well as the lines of people awaiting their turn in the doctor’s office are somewhat of an urban legend – and the subject of many a Polish joke.

The companies in Poland seem to be aware of those facts – as it might seem if we look at the sheer number of organizations offering private healthcare in their employee benefits package.

Still, if you do not enjoy visiting a doctor, either even without the infamous waiting lines, you might want to consider health prevention. They say that: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away!”

Then again, if being healthy was that simple, then apparently we got this healthcare thing entirely wrong: most companies (and countries when you think of it) should replace a visit to a doctor with a visit to a fruit stand. Some forward-thinking companies even have benefits like “fruity Mondays” on their agenda. Coincidence? Or mayhap the next time Steve from Accounting tries to go on sick leave, his boss shall exclaim in outrage “I think not! You, Sir, are a picture of health! You had an apple this Monday!”

2. Fit as a fiddle – Sports card 66%

Now that potential employees are medically checked and proclaimed fit to work, you might be wondering – But what can we do to keep them fit and healthy? Well, if 66% of companies offering a sports card is any indication, you should quite literally send them to a fitness class.

Or, more commonly, offer them a card that allows them to attend a range of various physical activities, ranging from the classics, like gym or yoga classes, to more exotic options, such as paintball, martial arts, or kayaking.

The benefits of physical activity were known to us since ancient times – and an old Latin phrase “Mens sana in corpore sano” (translated as “healthy spirit in a healthy body”) even underlines its significance on a man's mental well-being.

That being said, sports might not be everybody's cup of tea – and those individuals, instead of a sports card, might have preferred to get a sports car. One lousy letter in one word – yet it makes a world of difference.

3. Smells like team spirit - Integration events 57%

“But I always say, one’s company, two’s a crowd, and three’s a party.” Andy Warhol, a legend of pop art, also known as the “The-guy-who-made-that-Marilyn-Monroe-face-poster-in-every-colour-of-the-rainbow”, once said.

James Thurber, a famous American cartoonist, seemed to disagree about the exact number constituting a company or a party “Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd.”

Whatever the exact number of people required to make a party is, Polish companies sure love to throw them. ­According to the Statista poll, 57% of societies offer integration events as benefits. And there is a good reason for that.

The company-sponsored integration events give employees a chance to relax and unwind. They often are also a perfect occasion to get to know one another better outside of the work environment, and sometimes even – present a chance to build trust and team spirit.

Whether you are sipping a beer with Joasia from Procurement, taunting Tomek the Tax-Taskmaster about his poor bowling technique, or trying to destroy Sylwia, your boss, in the epic duel of Dance Dance Revolution – there is plenty of fun to have and shared memories to make.

4. Live and (don’t) let die – Life insurance 55%

“Better safe than sorry” – This common-sense motto is apparently a belief shared by many (55%) companies in Poland, who offer their employees life insurance as a benefit. In general, there are two types of such life insurance:

• Compulsory – In this type of insurance, the insurance premium is covered by the employer. The scope of such an insurance plan is rather limited, and the sums insured are either fixed or based on the salary.

• Voluntary – Here, the premium is covered entirely by the employee, and it’s deducted from your salary on a monthly basis. The scope of this plan however is far more extensive and it can even extend to your family – the benefits are paid in case of, for example, the beneficiary contracting a critical illness or a disability, as well as important live events, like a birth of a child, or, from another side of the spectrum, a death of your close relative.

And look, no Polish company wants you to get hurt, or, god forbid, to die! But if you do get hurt – wouldn’t it be better to recuperate on a pile of money? And, yes, it is technically true that if you did in fact die, money would be of little use to you. But it would be of great consolation to any family, spouses, or children you left behind. Even if money can’t buy happiness or stop the falling tears, your family could at least try to dry them with Polish Zloty bills.

5. Go with the flow – Flexible work 50%

According to the report of the International Labor Organization, Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World, flexible working time can positively influence not only the worker’s work-life balance but also their business performance.

The grand shift in the approach to flexible working time can probably be traced back to the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, facing the new reality of obligatory facemasks and necessary social distancing, many companies were forced to abandon the traditional 9 to 5 in the office mode. Instead, they embraced new methods, like flexible working hours and remote work.

Companies in Poland seem to have adapted pretty well to this trend – half of the surveyed societies offer flexible working time to their employees. Whether it’s fully remote or hybrid work you wish for – there is now a fifty-fifty chance that your employer will say “Sure” instead of the customary “Surely, you are joking!”. Well, flexible work is still a work in progress.

The beforementioned features are just a tip of the work-benefit iceberg offered by Polish companies. In this article, we focused only on the five most common options, but there is so much more hiding below the surface. Some enterprises offer their employees business phones (47%), financing additional education (43%), extended healthcare packages (39%), business computers for private use (39%), company cars (36%) and gift vouchers (36%).

The fact that a vast majority of companies offer such an abundance of benefits creates a pretty high job market standard. This gives employees the freedom to choose which of those features are most important to them: from private healthcare to live insurance (should the healthcare fail), from sports cards to company cars. Tragically, nobody thought to kill two birds with one stone – so still no company sports cars.

Sources: ­

ILO - Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World

Statista – Most common additional work benefits offered by employers(…)

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