The partners whose services we offer through the Benefiti.app platform are extremely important to us. Without them, we as a platform would not function, and we believe we share the same values. Therefore, we love to hear their opinions on benefits in general. As part of our blog section, we decided to ask our partners what benefits mean to them and what specific benefits they can offer to companies and their employees.
We believe that there are benefits that are particularly important to employees. Education, psychological support, and support for parents are some of the values we consider crucial for employee satisfaction.
Balance Consulting and Kompas Vaspitanje offer all these services on the Benefiti platform, making them ideal partners for our platform.
Below, read the interview with Jelena Marušić from Balance Consulting, a graduate psychologist, trainer of developmental skills, parenting advisor, and founder of Kompas Vaspitanje.
What do the benefits provided by employers to employees personally mean to you?
When there is an understanding from the employer regarding personal situations, such as when our child is sick or we are not feeling well, this can be a strong benefit for employees because they feel that the employer listens to problems that are not work-related but can affect work. Employees are often willing to engage in additional training, and the environment they work in can be important to them, including whether they have refreshments during breaks. Some people enjoy traveling and activities that motivate them to take action, which can be facilitated through team-building events. Additionally, support for personal development, flexibility, freedom of expression, nurturing proactivity and idea implementation, a sense of "ownership" over projects, and the possibility of interest-free loans are benefits that give employees the feeling that the employer cares about them.
In your opinion, to what extent can benefits influence employee satisfaction and engagement?
Benefits can contribute to satisfaction and engagement because they send a message about how much the employer listens to employees, recognizes their needs, and thereby provides employees with a sense of security.
What benefits have you had the opportunity to use during your career that had the most positive impact on you personally?
Personally, the most positive impact has been the understanding from the employer and the time spent with the team outside of work (of course, everything mentioned in the first question as well).
Introduce your company
Balance Consulting provides support to organizations in the area of their most important resource - people.
The Balance team believes in potential and aims to support individuals in their process of progress and development. Our team consists of psychotherapists, certified coaches, and parenting advisors. We strive to support our clients in an empathetic, creative, and practical way. In 2018, we celebrated a decade of nurturing creativity, courage, flexibility, and development, which are actually our core values.
Balance Consulting is located in Kragujevac, and their services are also available online.
Present the services/benefits that the company provides
Balance Consulting offers services for the individual development of employees' personal potential, such as coaching.
Coaching is an interactive process that supports individuals in developing their potential and motivates them to achieve better results. Coaching is a true benefit for those who are ready to take responsibility and demonstrate commitment. Coaching is realized through clients choosing the challenges they want to work on, and together with the coach, they find all the necessary resources to achieve their goals.
In addition to coaching, the services of psychotherapeutic support became particularly prominent during 2020. Psychotherapy is a process aimed at improving mental health as well as providing support in overcoming mental and emotional issues through conversation. During psychotherapy, clients learn and gain numerous insights about their states and moods, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. By using the knowledge gained during psychotherapy, individuals adopt healthy coping skills for managing problems and stress.
Balance Consulting, through its project Kompas vaspitanje (vaspitanje.com), offers a service of support for employee parents. Establishing a balance between work and family is not at all easy and is very important. Most parents find it challenging to set boundaries while showing love to their children simultaneously. It often happens that in the struggle with their own stress, they are either rigid and the constant answer is no, or they overly indulge their children to please them. During individual or group work, parents receive full support, necessary knowledge, techniques, guidelines, as well as assistance without bias or judgment. This way, parents become encouraged and better prepared to care for their children.
What is the greatest value of the benefits your company provides to employees?
The greatest benefit they receive is the care for employees and the feeling that the company takes care of them in a holistic way, regarding them as people, not just as employees.
Through working with parents, they receive concrete guidelines and tools on how to establish a good relationship with their children. During psychotherapy, they receive specific tools they can use in the field of their mental health.
What are the biggest challenges companies face today when creating benefit programs for employees?
There is a wide selection of benefits. The biggest challenge is assessing what constitutes a benefit from the employees' perspective.
Has the new situation with the pandemic influenced you to change your approach to providing your service?
The new situation with the pandemic has made certain services, such as employee mental health and care for parents, a priority for organizations at this moment. Something that was discussed earlier has now come to the forefront.
Who is the team behind all this?
Marija Švigir is the founder of Balance Consulting. Marija believes in balance, inspiration, and change. She thinks that one of the most beautiful things we can afford is to live and work in accordance with our personal values. On her path of personal development, what matters more to her is what she is now than what she has been.
Jelena Marušić loves her job, and her motivation is the trust of clients who guide her on the path of change, which she earns through her dedication and responsibility. The business environment, expectations, and challenges of parenthood place great responsibility on employee parents, which is why Jelena founded Kompas vaspitanje—a support program for parents.
Dubravka Đorđević - loves challenges and working with people. She believes that individuals possess unlimited capabilities when they are inspired and focused on what truly matters to them. Besides coaching, which she uses for individual development, she enjoys the exchange of energy that comes from conducting group training sessions. She strives to improve the workday in Serbia.
Uroš Mitić - Uroš focuses on the development of individuals, teams, and organizations. The tools and concepts he applies in his work come from the integration of psychology and transactional analysis. His areas of interest include coaching, soft skills training, and human resource management in areas such as establishing procedures, recruitment, and selection, etc.
Ksenija Stanković is an advocate of the idea that without will and liberated consciousness, we cannot create authentic change that brings positive results. Her spheres of interest include personality assessment, training, and pedagogical psychology, which she applies through the implementation of the Kompas vaspitanje program.
Sara Dulčić - since her student days, she has been involved in organizing numerous projects, humanitarian actions, and conferences, during which she had the opportunity to work on interpersonal relationships. In addition to accounting and finance, which she focused on during her studies, she has developed various soft skills and sparked an interest in marketing and HR.
