Employee Benefit Availability, Use, and Subjective Evaluation: A Meta-Analysis of Relationships With Perceived Organizational Support, Affective Organizational Commitment, Withdrawal, Job Satisfaction, and Well-Being

Employee benefits constitute 38.1% of compensation costs, representing a sizeable investment in the workforce. Unlike other forms of support that depend on the actions of individuals throughout the organization, benefits can be changed through decisions at the highest level and influence employees throughout the company. Yet, the literature on benefits has been largely disjointed, resulting in theoretical ambiguity and practical questions about the role of employee benefit experiences in individual employee outcomes. To inform theory and practice, we organized the benefits literature using social exchange theory as a framework and conducted a meta-analysis on the relationships of employee benefit availability, use, and subjective evaluation with perceived organizational support, employee attitudes, and well-being. Our review (k = 134, N = 260,604) found unique relationships between the availability and subjective evaluation of employee benefits and affective organizational commitment, withdrawal intentions, job satisfaction, and well-being, with these relationships partially mediated by perceived organizational support. Benefit use contributed little to these outcomes beyond benefit availability and subjective evaluation. Benefit subjective evaluation was also more strongly related to most outcomes than were benefits availability and use. These relationships varied across types of benefits, with training benefits more strongly related to job satisfaction and health care and retirement benefits more strongly related to turnover intentions. Altogether, this meta-analysis integrates the empirical literature on employee benefits and highlights the implications of benefit experiences and types for the employee-organization relationship and employee well-being.