Employees care about benefits, and the package you offer can make the difference between maintaining a top-notch staff and losing your best workers to the competition. While federal law mandates some perks, including time off to vote and serve jury duty, others are purely voluntary offerings intended to improve the health, happiness and productivity of your workforce.

As the economy improves and labor markets begin to pick up the pace of hiring, workers around the world are beginning to seek out new job opportunities. According to research conducted by HayGroup, a global management-consulting firm, worldwide employee turnover will reach 23.4 percent by 2018. The firm predicts more than 161 million employees are already preparing to leave their employers.

As anyone with more than a handful of employees knows, enrollment and management of employee benefits is a frequently tedious, time consuming process. Between the constant fight to remain in compliance with HIPAA and other federal and state laws, open-enrollment periods that can keep HR professionals tied up for weeks at a time, and the usual demands of hires, fires and COBRA issues, you have a major man-hours project on your hands.

At one time or another you have likely received an email informing you that you will need to change your password for one of the websites you visit. The trigger for these advisories is often a data breach, a nightmare scenario in which a hacker gains access to consumer data, which could include personal information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers and addresses.

According to a 2013 employer survey conducted by Accelir, a human resource strategy advisory firm, 91 percent of companies include a service rewards program as part of their employee benefits package. In addition to traditional milestone awards for five, 10 and 20 years of employment, many of these companies are beginning to recognize employees after as little as one year of service.