Benefits and Strategic Outcomes: Are Supplemental Retirement Plans and Safer Driving Related in the U.S. Trucking Industry?

Date

9/13/2016

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Human Resource Management

Abstract

We suggest that a firm's benefits can relate to important organizational outcomes that have strategic implications. We propose a number of mechanisms that could relate benefits to strategic outcomes, including the notion that benefits can help attract and retain the type of employees who are most likely to perform in ways consistent with the firms’ strategies. We illustrate this with the case of supplemental retirement benefits in an actual setting, the long‐haul trucking industry. We report positive organization‐level relationships associated with the management choice of offering these benefits. Our results show that firms offering supplemental retirement plans engage in significantly safer driving practices, as measured by the proxy of driver insurance costs, as hypothesized. These findings show that benefits can be related to outcomes that have strategic implications for the firm. By showing that retirement plans may be of value to organizations, we help to bridge the academic‐practitioner divide and provide motivation and guidance for additional work on this important but underresearched topic.

Description

Keywords

Benefits, HR strategy, Retirement plans, Risk, Safety

Citation

Copyright 2016 Human Resource Management. This is a post-print version of a published paper that is available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hrm.21688 Recommended citation: Werner, Steve, Christian S. Kuiate, Thomas R. Noland, and Arthur J. Francia. "Benefits and Strategic Outcomes: Are Supplemental Retirement Plans and Safer Driving Related in the US Trucking Industry?." Human Resource Management 55, no. 5 (2016): 885-900. DOI:10.1002/hrm.21688 This item has been deposited in accordance with publisher copyright and licensing terms and with the author’s permission.