Summit Research Confirms Link between Employee Benefits and Company Growth

 Summit Professional Networks, a leader in information services for the insurance, financial services and legal industries, has launched the Sustained Growth Collaborative (SGC). The SGC is a major research and content initiative in conjunction with the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies (IEGC). The SGC’s mission is to foster a better understanding of middle market companies and to identify specific characteristics of these companies that enable them to experience and sustain exceptional growth.

The first of the major research findings announced by the firm include: companies that experience sustained periods of growth are more likely to use ERISA retirement plans to attract, retain and incentivize their employees. This research indicates a strong link between robust benefit plans and overall firm growth.

“Most companies intuitively understand that benefits are linked to employee productivity and output,” said Gary Mirkin, senior vice president of Summit Professional Networks. “We’ve taken it a step further and have identified a very exciting statistical relationship between employee benefits and sustained company growth. We believe that this kind of quantitative verification of the value of benefits programs as a driver of business growth is the missing link for benefits companies, providers and vendors interested in validating their value proposition to employer groups.”

Additionally, among the preliminary findings, the Sustained Growth Collaborative found that middle market companies that experience periods of exceptional growth are more likely to have retirement plans with more financial assets, higher employee participation rates, and higher than average employee contribution amounts. Further, employer contribution rates are significantly higher among sustained growth companies, providing a statistical link between robust benefits plans and firm growth.