At Kinexus, if we had a dollar for the number of times we’ve been asked: what do other companies offer? Well, we’d have a lot of dollars!
Creating a fit-for-purpose Employee Value Proposition (EVP) can be tricky. It’s about finding the right balance between what your business can offer, budget / time restrictions and what really makes a difference to the employees you need.
Ultimately, your EVP is likely to be unique to your company.
Despite this, as defence industry specialists, there are trends that we have identified. Prime contractors typically offer comprehensive benefits focused on flexibility, development and work-life balance. SMEs offer more varied benefits, often focused on culture and employee engagement.
Types of Benefits
A summary of types of benefits we see most regularly is below.
Job Satisfaction Factors
Kinexus has surveyed the defence industry workforce since 2005. Results of the most recent survey, completed in January 2025, are as follows:
Job satisfaction
This graph presents the respondents’ opinion when asked, ‘What has the most impact on your job satisfaction?’ Respondents were asked to select their top five. The percentages show the proportion of respondents who feel the factors below contribute most to their job satisfaction.
The graph shows that interesting work, work life balance, remuneration and culture are the top factors impacting job satisfaction.
Industry Insight
Our specialist consultants report that:
Interesting work and culture make up an important part of the EVP for SMEs, and
Remuneration and work life balance make up an important part of EVP for Primes.
SMEs are consistently strong in offering interesting work and strong organisational culture. To remain competitive with Primes, SMEs must strengthen offerings around remuneration and work-life balance.
Employee share schemes (where employees are offered the opportunity to buy shares in a company) are most common in start-ups. Education and training support is becoming increasingly expected and valued across the sector.
Younger employees place higher value on flexible working arrangements than older cohorts. This should be considered when setting retention and attraction strategies.
So there you have it, an insight into what other companies offer when it comes to employee benefits. Intrigued by the data? Get more by downloading Defence Industry Insights - 11th Edition.
Photo by Liuba Bilyk on Unsplash
