By Cathy O'Donoghue, managing director at HR Champions Ltd 

Keeping with our 'Top 100' theme in the latest edition of Punchline, regular Business Boffin Cathy takes a look at how successful businesses have their employees' welfare at heart.

Making the Top 100 is a significant accomplishment and I congratulate all those who have achieved it. Obviously, it's great for those organisations' profiles, and as employers it helps to support their 'brand' as being desirable companies to work for. Whilst it can't always be assumed, working for a bigger business does tend to be more secure, and we can expect that there will be more staff benefits.

Standing out from the crowd as an employer doesn't mean that staff need to be pampered with wild and wacky benefits. Especially when they are more of an attention-grabbing novelty than a true advantage to the employee - think slide instead of stairs at Google and Lego head offices! Having a reputation as an employer that looks after its employees and shows a genuine concern for their welfare will be much more beneficial in the long term.

Traditionally when we talk about benefits, pensions or healthcare schemes probably spring to mind. However, the introduction of compulsory pension provision through auto-enrolment has levelled the playing field, and providing a full healthcare package can be cost restrictive, especially for bigger employers. Anyway, it's not always high value or monetary benefits that employees really want.

Work/ life balance features much more prominently among what employees are looking for from a job these days and our own research backs this up. Indeed, when asked to score benefits in order of importance, for many, a flexible working regime ranked higher than pay. And it's easy to see why.

Stress and anxiety from the pressures and expectations at work continue to be a huge concern among workers. Stories in the media appear almost daily about mental health issues and it's a trend that is reflected in the increase in related cases we are supporting via our own employer helpline. We have now added mental health courses to our training portfolio, to help organisations identify potential mental health issues and take appropriate action before they get out of hand and impact the business.

Knowing how beneficial physical health can be for mental health, Top 100 businesses are now more likely to include a discounted gym membership scheme amongst their benefits. But it can be just as important to promote a healthy culture. Organising a lunchtime walking group could be a good and inexpensive place to start, or perhaps encouraging fruit instead of cake on birthdays.

Employee Assistance Programmes that include a confidential helpline are widely promoted now but simply being conscious of your team's workload through regular one-to-one meetings or making it easier to book holiday at short notice might be all that is required to keep a lid on pressure.

The point is that for many employees, your company culture could be the biggest benefit of working at your business so we should try to ensure that any available benefits match the organisation's values.

For further help and support with this topic or to book onto one of HR Champions' courses please visit www.hrchampions.co.uk or call 01452 331331.