Research on the Relationship between Flexible Benefits and

Employee Work Well-being1

Gongli-Luo1, Shuangshuang-Lin2
1. Qingdao University of Science &Technology, Qingdao 266061, China
E-mail: luogongli1112@126.com
2. Qingdao University of Science &Technology, Qingdao 266061, China
E-mail: linss1015@163.com
Abstract: Flexible benefits cannot be ignored in the promotion of the employee's work well-being. On the basis of
introducing the concept of flexible benefits and work well-being, this paper analyzes the relationship between
flexible benefits and work well-being, and proposes the research hypothesis, establishes the theoretical model, and
takes the new generation staff as the research object, and uses the method of stepwise multiple regression to test the
hypothesis. The final result shows that the influence of education and training welfare, sports and entertainment
welfare, holiday welfare and housing and transportation welfare on the work well-being of the new generation staff
is significant, and the effect of safety and health welfare, family allowance and holiday allowance is not obvious,
which provides the direction for the construction of flexible benefits.
Key words: Flexible benefits, Work well-being, Stepwise multiple regression

Work well-being is the sum of the positive cognition that
the employees of the company work with and the
psychological satisfaction that they experience in the wok
[1]
. Flexible benefits is defined as the welfare projects
combination, that enterprises design and implement,
within a certain cost budget, a variety of welfare
programs according to the employee’s personalized
welfare demand for them to choose, so that each
employee's welfare needs to get the
satisfaction[2]. There is a close connection between them.
1 INTRODUCTION1
With the rapid development of social economy, the salary
is no longer the only factor to decide whether employees
to stay or go. The importance of employee benefits is
gradually emerging. Effective management of employee
welfare can help attract and keep employees, improve the
image of the enterprise in the eyes of them, and different
with income, welfare do not need to pay taxes in general,
relative to the same amount of money to pay, in a sense,
the welfare value is greater to the staff. However,
employee welfare still exist the characteristics of low
differences and high rigidity. Welfare programs are so
single that cannot meet the employee’s personalized and
diversified needs. The welfare cost was spent so much but
not achieved satisfactory effect. In view of this, flexible
benefits were introduced and have gradually become the
maximum new darling of the welfare management. But there are
difficulties to form the scale effect of welfare and find the
balance point of employee welfare and enterprise benefits,
so as to realize the important role of flexible benefits in
management process, and to motivate the employee with
an impressive effect under the established economic cost,
it is necessary to pay attention to well-being that indicates
the employee's personal emotional experience and
cognitive evaluation. Therefore, studying on flexible
benefits from the perspective of improving employee's
work well-being will be of great guidable and practical

1
significance to improve the welfare plan and maximize
Project supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China:
the enterprise value.
Growth elements collaboration and growth performance of innovative
The research of flexible benefits is still in the initial
enterprises: Based on total factor of view (71540017); Project of the
stage, the existing literature discusses the welfare needs
natural science foundation of Shandong Province: Research on growth
of employees and the existing problems mostly. Wenping
elements coordination mechanism and its realization path of innovative
Liang (2014) proposed the design principles and
enterprises in Shandong Province (ZR2014GM012).

978-1-4673-9714-8/16/$31.00 2016
c IEEE 178
formulation steps of employee flexible benefits plan on
the basis of analyzing the existential problems of flexible
[3]
benefits system ; Lin Du (2015) introduced the
connotation and function of flexible benefits plan, and
made a preliminary study on the application of flexible
benefits plan in the enterprise and related problems that
should be paid attention to[4]. But there is little research
on the relationship between flexible benefits and work
well-being. This paper studies the relationship between
flexible benefits and work well-being, in theory, will not
only help enrich and improve the study of the structure of
work well-being, but also open up new ideas for the study
of flexible benefits.
2 HYPOTHESIS PROPOSED AND MODEL
CONSTRUCTION
There are a lot of welfare programs in the enterprise,
which can be classified into seven categories, such as the
education and training, housing and transportation, safety
and health, sports and entertainment, holiday, family and
holiday allowance. In order to make the welfare programs
fit the needs of employees the most, it is necessary to
study the relationship between the welfare programs and
work well-being.
2.1 The Relationship between Education and Training
Welfare and Work Well-being
Education and training welfare includes further education,
work training and job rotation, etc. The employee's
positive perception of the growth and development can
provide intrinsic rewards for the work, generate incentive
effect, and finally give employees a sense of work
well-being. The study of Jacob C. Jeffrey (1999) proved
that the improvement of their own value and the
realization of the goal can improve the subjective
well-being of the individual [5]
. The good education and
training welfare provides the employees with the
opportunity to learn and improve themselves, further
education can enhance the professional skills and
knowledge literacy, work training and job rotation can
improve the employees’ ability and quality, which will
lay the foundation for future career development. So the
hypothesis is as follows:
H1: Education and training welfare has the positive
correlation with work well-being
2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)
2.2 The Relationship between Housing and
Transportation Welfare and Work Well-being
Housing and transportation welfare includes housing
subsidies, transportation allowance, etc. In the top ten
factors affecting the well-being of the people, housing has
been ranked among them, and transportation is closely
related to the employee's working life. They all belong to
the basic needs of employees. If these can not be met,
employees will live in anxiety and unease, and will not
concentrate on work, and be difficult to mobilize
enthusiasm, let alone a higher sense of work well-being.
In addition, if the work can not help employees solve a
part of the housing and transportation problems, the
family members’ recognition of the work will be lower,
and work-family conflict will also be increased,
enhancing the work well-being of employees will be
more blocked. So the hypothesis is as follows:
H2: Housing and transportation welfare has the positive
correlation with work well-being
2.3 The Relationship between Safety and Health
Welfare and Work Well-being
Safety and health welfare mainly includes health
examination, supplementary pension insurance and labor
protection, etc. With the material living conditions
improving gradually, people are increasingly concerned
about the health of themselves and their families, safety
and health welfare have become one of the important
factors that affect people's happiness. If the enterprise
guarantees that the employee’ s work is safe and healthy,
the employees will be able to stay focused on work
without worry and obtain the maximum sense of work
well-being. Safety and health welfare not only provides
protection for employee's potential health problems, but
also pays attention to health itself, provides insurance
while providing fitness facilities for employees, so that
employees can get a good sense in physiology and
psychology, so the hypothesis is as follows:
H3: safety and health welfare has the positive correlation
with work well-being
2.4 The Relationship between Sports and
Entertainment Welfare and Work Well-being
The welfare of sports and entertainment includes holiday
parties, the company dinner, tourism and group activities,
179
 etc. Work well-being is hardly attained without the
harmonious interpersonal relationship. Ryan R M (2000),
a foreign scholar, believed that the fundamental nature of
[6]
well-being is of human relationships
psychologists also thought that the quality
interpersonal relationships had a big influence on work
happiness. The good interpersonal relationship can let
employees get the confidence from the team members,
meet their social demand and the need to be respected and
also get more happiness and satisfaction from the work
experience. Sports and entertainment welfare is an
effective way to increase the interpersonal relationship.
So the hypothesis is as follows:
H4˖Sports and entertainment welfare has the positive
relationship with work well-being
2.5 The Relationship between Holiday Welfare and
Work Well-being
Holiday welfare includes the relative payment for annual
leave, independent work time, etc. Jeroen Nawijn’s
research has shown that the different frequency and
length of the holiday has different influence on people’s
[7]
happiness . Through empirical study, Wenting Lei
concluded that holiday treatment loading factor in the
demand of the holiday welfare has reached 0.750 .
Having more time with family can help promote family
harmony and easily achieve recognition of work. Getting
along with friends can help employees build good social
relationships, meet their communication needs. Under the
premise of completing tasks, autonomous working time
can make employees control over their working time
reasonably, also can let them feel more freedom. These
all will improve the work happiness. So the hypothesis is
as follows:
H5: Holiday welfare has the positive relationship with
work well-being
2.6 The Relationship between Family Allowance and
Work Well-being
Family allowance includes the medical subsidy of family
members, educational assistance of children, etc. For
middle-aged workers with the elderly and the children in
the home, most of them are facing with the problem of
family burden. The large family pressure will make
employees exhausted and hard to put enthusiasm into
180 2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)
work, and reduce the level of happiness significantly.
Providing health benefits for family members and
education allowance for children can solve some family’s
. Many difficulties, send the most practical help to employees,
of give them psychological warmth, and make family
members approve of the job, eventually make the
employees get more happiness. So the hypothesis is as
follows:
H6: Family allowance has the positive relationship with
work well-being
2.7 The Relationship between Holiday Allowance and
Work Well-being
Holiday allowance includes shopping card, special
holiday gifts, etc. According to the survey, various
monetary allowances are quite popular with the staff. On
the holiday, the employees want to get the subsidies with
the nature of monetary, like shopping card, certificates
and so on, because employees can clearly know their
value, and can buy something according to their own
needs. To a certain extent, it also gives the employees
more choices what is helpful to improve the employees'
happiness. Special holiday gifts are given to the
employees or their family members in the significant day,
[8]
this will not only make employees and their families feel
the warmth, and make the employees have a sense of
belonging to the enterprise, enjoy the happiness of being
love. So the hypothesis is as follows:
H7: Holiday allowance has the positive relationship with
work well-being
Based on the above analysis and research hypothesis,
the theoretical model of flexible benefits and work
well-being was proposed as follows:

 Fig1. Theoretical Model of Flexible Benefits and Work were received, 119 questionnaires are valid, the recovery
Well-being rate is 67.01%, and the effective rate is 60.41%.

3 EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 3.2 Reliability and Validity Analysis

DISCUSSION
In this paper, SPSS19.0 was used to analysis
3.1 Questionnaire Survey and Data Collection questionnaire reliability. The results show that Cronbach's
alpha coefficient of the subscales all were greater than
According to the seven categories of welfare policy that
0.70, indicating that there was a strong correlation
flexible benefits include, this paper has designed 17
between observed variables and corresponding latent
questions to measure the state of the specific benefits, and
variables, internal consistency was good. The
used the other 4 questions to measure the work well-being.
questionnaire has high reliability.
Likert5 subscale was used in all questions. To ensure the
reliability and validity of the questionnaire, the design of Using SPSS software to test the welfare and work
questions referred to the subscales that have been proved, well-being subscale respectively, KMO values were more
and the questionnaire was modified and improved than 0.6, and the result of Bartlett's test displayed that the
according to the opinions of the scholars and employees. significance of subscales were 0.000, indicating that the
data was suitable for factor analysis. The results of using
The influence on work well-being coming from the same
principal component analysis to explore the factor
welfare policies varies from different groups and ages. To
analysis showed that the factor load of each measurement
minimize the impact of demographic variables, this paper
item was more than 0.5, which means that the observed
took the new generation staff as the research object,
variables have strong explanatory power to the latent
namely, 80, 90 employees. Through statistics, a total of
variables, and the questionnaire was of good quality.
197 questionnaires were distributed, 132 questionnaires
Table1. Results of Subscales’ Reliability and Validity Analysis

Cronbach's KMO Bartlett's globular tests

Alpha Approximate df Sig.
chi-square distribution
Global data .926 .892 1333.330 210 .000
Welfare subscale .917 .885 1066.248 136 .000
Work well-being subscale .738 .744 110.682 6 .000

3.3 Correlation Analysis well-being. This provides preliminary evidence for the
previous research hypothesis. But the correlation
By calculating correlation coefficient, the degree of
relationship can only indicate whether there is a
correlation between the variables can be obtained. Table 2
relationship between the variables, and cannot explain the
shows the correlation coefficients between the welfares
existence of a causal relationship. Therefore, multiple
and work well-being, from which we can see that there is
linear regression will be used to verify the relationship
a significant correlation between the welfares and work
between the variables precisely.

Table2. Correlation Matrix

Education Housing and Safety and Sports and

Work and training transportatio health entertainment Holiday Holiday Family
well-being welfare n welfare welfare welfare welfare allowance allowance
Work well-being 1.000
Education and .672 1.000
training welfare
Housing and .441 .334 1.000
transportation welfare

2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC) 181

 Safety and health .384 .199 .492 1.000
welfare
Sports and .523 .343 .353 .427 1.000
entertainment welfare
Holiday welfare .526 .475 .335 .542 .398 1.000
Holiday allowance .385 .337 .358 .316 .462 .399 1.000
Family allowance .308 .251 .457 .314 .348 .185 .380 1.000

3.4 Regression Analysis and Hypothesis Testing y=b+bx+bx+…+bNxN+e

Regression analysis mainly lies in the description,
explanation and prediction, multiple linear regression
analysis is used to find out a linear combination of
independent variables, with concise description of the
relationship between a set of predictor variables and the
criterion variable. Set y as a criterion variable, x1, x2...xk
as predictor variables, when there is the linear
relationship between them, the multiple linear regression
model will be as follows:
Table3. Summary Table of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis
Wherein, b0 is a constant term, b1 ˈ b2,…bk is the
regression coefficient, and e is the random error.
In this paper, the method of stepwise multiple regression
analysis was used to find the most predictive variables
form numbers of independent variables, so as to construct
an optimal regression model. To set the work well-being
as explained variable, and various benefits as explanatory
variables, input them to the model. The summary of
results analysis is as shown in the table:

Estimated Change statistics

R-squar Adjusted F-meas
The order of inputting variables R standard R-square B Beta˄£˅
ed R-squared ure F Change
error change

Intercept 1.090

1. Education and training welfare .672 .452 .447 .58553 96.387 .452 96.387 .376 .463

2.Sports and entertainment welfare .740 .548 .540 .53377 70.393 .097 24.796 .153 .250

3.holiday welfare .756 .571 .560 .52213 51.119 .023 6.226 .096 .157

4. housing and transportation welfare .767 .589 .574 .51381 40.779 .017 4.755 .091 .146

From the table we can find that there are four variables
that have significant predictive power on the work
well-being in the seven predictor variables. They are
education and training welfare, sports and entertainment
welfare, holiday welfare and housing and transportation
welfare in turn. The multivariate correlation coefficient
between the four predictor variables and work well-being
was 0.767, the coefficient of determination was 0.589,
and the F value of integrity test for the final regression
model was 40.779. The P-value was less than the
significance level of 0.05. So the four variables were
effective in explaining the variation of 58.9% of the work
well-being. From the perspective of the predictive power
of each variable, the best predictor of work well-being
was education and training welfare, which explained the
variation of 45.2%, followed by sports and entertainment
welfare, it explained variation of 9.7%, and the remaining
two independent variables were 2.3% and 1.7%. In
addition, the beta values of four predictor variables in the
regression model were positive, indicating that their
influence on the work well-being was positive. H1, H2,
H4 and H5 were verified. The remaining variables were
excluded from the regression model, said that they
explain little variation in the work well-being. H3, H6 and
H7 were not verified.
3.5 Results Discussion
The empirical results show that the welfare policies all
have a certain impact on the work well-being of new
generation staff, some of them are more significant. On
the one hand, this shows the demands of new generation
staff, on the other, it points out the direction for
enterprises to develop flexible welfare plan.

182 2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

 (1) The welfare of education and training has the most that the new generation of employees is still in the stage
significant impact on the work well-being of new of striving, pay more attention to success while ignoring
generation staff. The new generation staff with high their own safety and health. As for family allowances,
achievement and high self-realization oriented, they are because the most research objects did not get married, so
eager for success, hoping to spell out a career through such allowances are not within the scope of their
their own efforts. If enterprises can provide them with consideration of work. For these benefits, when
better education and training opportunities, they will enterprises are in the formulation of flexible welfare plan,
maintain the enthusiasm for work in the process of they can consider the specific circumstances of the new
drawing new knowledge constantly, and feel more work generation of employees, without paying too much
happiness. capital.
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2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC) 183