Only one in five white-collar New Zealanders say their workplace benefits are genuinely useful and meet their needs, as workers increasingly look to perks to make up for pay that has fallen behind the cost of living, new research has found.
The 2026 Cultivate Workplace Benefits Report, based on a survey of 1003 employed New Zealanders and released today, found 61% say their base salary has fallen behind living costs over the past three years, with 30% saying it has fallen well behind.
Over the same period, 36% say benefits matter more to how they value a job than they did three years ago, against just 4% who say they matter less. Yet just 19% described their benefits as genuinely valuable and well matched to their needs.
Cultivate co-chief executive Tony Pownall said the problem was not simply that employers were tight-fisted.
"Benefits are being asked to carry more weight, and a lot of them aren't landing," Pownall said. "It isn't just that employers aren't spending. It's that a lot of what they do spend is aimed at the wrong target."
Time beats the gym discount
Asked which benefit they would value most, respondents put time and flexibility well in front on 39%, followed by help reducing everyday living costs on 20%. Wellbeing support came last on 2%.
Cultivate co-chief executive Trina Jones said the results reflected the squeeze on household budgets.
"When people have to choose one thing, they choose time or cost relief," Jones said.
"When your pay hasn't kept up with the weekly shop, a benefit that gives you time back with your family, or takes a cost off your plate, lands very differently to a gym discount."
Flexible working and an extra week of annual leave were the benefits most likely to attract someone to a new employer, on 25% and 21% respectively, ahead of health insurance on 12%.
But the two are not equally available: flexible working reaches around two thirds of respondents, while extra leave above the statutory four weeks is offered to only 22%.
The EAP problem
Employee Assistance Programmes, or EAPs, are the second most commonly offered benefit, available to 51% of respondents. Yet 61% of those offered one have never used it.
Jones said the programmes had a role but were being overstretched.
"EAP matters, and for someone in genuine difficulty it can matter enormously," Jones said. "But it responds after someone is already struggling. It was never designed to carry a wellbeing strategy on its own, and that is close to what's being asked of it."
People designing benefits aren't those feeling the squeeze
The report also found a sharp divide between the top and the rest. Executive managers were more than twice as likely as specialists to describe their benefits as well matched, on 34% versus 16%, and overall 66% of respondents said they had never been told what their benefits were worth in dollars.
"The people designing benefit packages are having a better experience of them than the people they're designed for," Pownall said.
"If you're wondering whether yours are working, you're probably the least representative person to ask.
"Ask the people who rely on them."
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