Sábado

Companies are increasingly offering additional support beyond salary, particularly in areas where the public response falls short: healthcare, pensions, fertility, housing, and care for children and sick relatives. Some are also offering more time off for the same salary. Flexible benefits, with tax advantages, are another growing trend.

Bruno Mateus and Mariana Ferreira's plans were well laid out when a shock threatened to change everything: Bruno was diagnosed with cancer in 2022, at the age of 41. A move to Indonesia, made possible by an opportunity at the German pharmaceutical company Merck, where Bruno works, was postponed. And, before the difficult treatment began, they received a warning: chemotherapy would probably leave him infertile. The couple wanted a second child, so Bruno had his sperm cryopreserved. After overcoming the disease, and already in Asia, they unsuccessfully tried a first round of in vitro fertilisation. Back in Portugal, they tried again, but with one difference: Merck paid for everything.

“The process cost around 8,000 euros,” says Bruno Mateus, who now holds a global position at the company in oncology. The benefit, rare in Portugal, has been available at the pharmaceutical company since October 2024 and has a ceiling of 16,500 euros. Merck, which leads the fertility medicines market, is one of the members of the new Mais Fertilidade association, which brings together companies offering employee benefits in this area and aims to expand such support.

The company also provided flexibility in working hours, Mariana Ferreira explains, which was crucial in supporting Bruno through a delicate process involving numerous clinic visits. Mariana, who is currently working on the Yog4women project, which combines yoga with women's health, is 16 weeks pregnant. The couple know they will be able to use Bruno's company health insurance — which also covers his wife and daughter Matilde — to co-finance the birth in private healthcare. The same comprehensive insurance had already been a key weapon in his battle against cancer. “Most of my cancer treatment was carried out privately, and that was possible because I have this health insurance,” Bruno explains. “Without it, I don't know whether I would have been treated so quickly,” he says. Multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Merck are typically at the forefront of employee benefits, notes Miguel Ros Galego, who heads Marsh's Health & Benefits department in Portugal. The expansion of benefits, and changes to their nature, is nevertheless a trend not limited to multinationals and large Portuguese groups, but also extending to small and medium-sized companies. Health insurance remains the most valued benefit — there are between 2.5 and 3 million policies taken out by employers, according to the Marsh executive — but the traditional package of salary, meal allowance and insurance is changing.

There are two trends underway. The first concerns the scope of benefits, as companies move into areas where the welfare state response is absent or inadequate, increasingly becoming involved in what were previously considered private matters: they pay for fertility treatments, help with buying or renting a home, provide extra days off (sometimes paid) to care for sick relatives, help find carers, finance supplementary pension funds and create holiday programmes for employees' children. The second concerns the way benefits are provided: flexible benefits, whose main advantage is tax efficiency.

Both increase the overall income generated through work, although they should not be confused with disinterested philanthropy, as will be discussed later — and they are changing the nature and format of employment compensation for an increasingly large proportion of people.

Stepping back is difficult

Tension at Barclays over remote working

Flexibility in managing working time risks becoming a difficult benefit to remove at Barclays in the United Kingdom. The end of fully remote working, with a move towards a hybrid model, is leading to requests for exemptions from employees who live far away and to commuting support, according to the Financial Times.

Insurer Fidelidade is an example of the first trend, through its NOS office, which offers everything from partnerships providing reduced-price mental health consultations to financial and legal coaching through partnerships with DECO, as well as “support for employee carers”.

“This support is not the same as the one provided under the [Informal Carer Statute], because that already exists and people can request it through Social Security — what we wanted was to add more substance to that support for these people,” explains Sónia Marianinho, who coordinates the office. Carer support provides discounts on the purchase of equipment such as wheelchairs, helps find recommended professional carers, includes access to a specialist geriatric nurse who provides advice, and offers seven days of unpaid leave per year for carers (which cannot be combined with the statutory entitlement).

The office, created in 2013, has gradually broadened its focus and last year Fidelidade supported 405 employees. “The aim is to try to find the best possible solutions to problems, knowing that each person is different,” explains Sónia Marianinho, illustrating the trend that is taking shape.

Márcia Gomes, a receptionist and administrator at a dstgroup company in Braga, was 28 when she got married in June 2024.

Six months earlier, at the Christmas party of the construction and engineering company, a new benefit had been announced: the employer would fully pay for the organisation of one employee wedding per year, for up to 185 guests.

Employees had to apply and wait for a decision that would take into account performance evaluations, length of service, management's opinion and salary level (the company says it gives preference to those on “more modest salaries” and to couples where both partners work at dst).

A wedding fully paid for

Márcia and João — her husband joined the group this year — were the first couple to have their wedding fully paid for and organised, for 155 guests.

“It was a very significant form of support for us and allowed us to experience this moment with a peace of mind that would otherwise have been difficult to achieve,” Márcia says in a written response sent through the company's communications office, referring to the possibility of “making a dream come true”.

The company's total cost, according to the responses, was around 53,000 euros.

At the beginning of this month, the third annual wedding since 2024 was paid for, for a couple of employees from the group.

Support of this kind, like Merck's fertility benefit, is far from being the norm in the market, but it illustrates how the employer's presence at key moments in people's lives is growing.

“Ultimately, we seek to ensure that benefits accompany employees and their families throughout the different stages of life: from their children's early years to education, healthcare, culture, sport, leisure and the employee's own well-being,” explains a dstgroup official source.

The support includes a “health centre offering psychology, dental care, nursing and general medical services, as well as physiotherapy” — and, soon, a nursery with capacity for 92 children up to the age of three.

Larger companies — dst employs around 2,700 people in Portugal — have greater capacity to expand the range of social benefits linked to “key moments”.

The Navigator Group, the Portuguese pulp and paper giant employing more than 3,500 people, announced its latest programme last year, “Habitar”, offering support of up to 925 euros to buy or rent a home (the company did not respond in time to SÁBADO's questions about the details of the measure).

It is the same as the company's minimum wage (870 euros in Portugal in 2025) and the amount it has awarded since 2023 for each child's birth.

As with other large companies, there is life insurance — which can be used, with adaptations, towards a mortgage — and health insurance extended to the family.

The expansion of this trend can be seen in the number of recent decisions by large companies, such as Sonae, which extended health insurance coverage for more than 1,000 employees at Wells stores to include fertility treatments.

SÁBADO asked whether the measure would also extend to the more than 30,000 employees of Modelo Continente, but received no response.

The expansion of benefits has the State as a counterpart in two ways: on the one hand, they reflect shortcomings in public provision; on the other, they are increasingly becoming a tax optimisation tool for companies and employees themselves.

This is where the second major trend comes in: “flexible benefits”.

Retirement — When the company encourages saving

BCP matches employees' voluntary 1.5% contributions to the pension fund with another 1.5%.

The benefit is part of the company agreement negotiated with the unions. Other companies have similar models.

The taxation of these funds is favourable, but returns over time leave something to be desired.

A menu and lower taxes

Surveys of employees and company management in Portugal — particularly in medium-sized and large companies — show that there is something almost as widely requested as health insurance: social vouchers. One example is the “childcare voucher”, intended for children under seven and used to pay for nurseries, kindergartens and childcare centres. These may form part of remuneration or, in other cases, be an option for receiving an additional bonus: payments made in this way are exempt from personal income tax and Social Security contributions. Given the weight of Social Security contributions (11% for the employee and 23.75% for the employer) and income tax, the differences are significant.

“There is a clear trend for the corporate market to offer a set of benefits based on essential social protection, complemented by an amount that allows each employee to choose the benefits that best suit their needs and preferences,” explains Ana Amado, head of benefits at consultancy WTW. “This trend has been intensifying, with organisations investing in personalised compensation models,” she adds. According to the 2025 barometer, almost two-thirds of the companies surveyed (62%) already have a flexible benefits programme and another 16% were considering such a model.

The freedom of choice provided by a flexible benefits allowance is lower than that inherent in receiving cash. One of the most common models, particularly in medium-sized and large companies, is a kind of benefits “wallet”, managed digitally through a platform. The company allocates employees a monthly or annual allowance and determines the categories in which they can choose to spend it (a pension savings plan, childcare voucher, technology purchases, transport, etc.). The advantage over paying salary or bonuses in cash is tax-related.

“The tax angle, in terms of taxation and Social Security costs, is essential in flexible benefits: the second decision, after deciding what to grant, is how the company structures the benefit to make it tax-efficient,” explains Dinis Tracana, a partner specialising in tax law at PLMJ. There are several criteria for exemptions: one is that the benefit must be made available to everyone in the company on similar terms (which limits individual negotiation). This model has grown significantly, and there are often grey areas between what is exempt and what is taxable employment income yet to be defined (the Tax Authority has issued some clarifications). Benefits such as technology vouchers, for example, are only tax-exempt if the equipment is intended for remote working and belongs to the company. The fact that they are the third most sought-after benefit suggests a non-tax advantage: the possibility of choosing a better computer or headphones for working from home and also using them in personal life. Alternatively, it may point to a very broad interpretation of the scope for tax optimisation (one source interviewed anonymously by SÁBADO described cases of using such vouchers to buy gadgets or lighting for the home as an office improvement).

Miguel Ros Galego, from Marsh, and Dinis Tracana note that the flexible benefits area has grey zones — the law is ten years old, while the reality was different — and that more conservative companies tend to be more cautious to ensure the tax security of these benefits.

Whether through the expansion of social benefits or the more frequent use of flexible benefits allowances, large companies are leading the way: multinationals come first, followed by large national companies and then medium-sized businesses, in a cascading effect of new salary and non-salary compensation practices.

One unintended impact of these measures is a widening gap between employees at larger companies — who already receive higher salaries than those at small and medium-sized companies — and the rest of the private sector.

Smaller companies, however, are not standing still — they simply use a different “currency”.

The other “currency”: time

Sofia Cardoso, 50, was with three young colleagues at an event organised by the consultancy she manages and co-owns, CRIUS Consulting, when they were asked whether they were her daughters. “It is a very young team,” she says with a smile. The consultancy, which works in accounting and the preparation of national and international projects, is based in Marco de Canaveses, in Porto district, and employs 15 people. Without the resources of a Merck to attract and retain employees, it has time and flexibility to offer non-financial advantages that are increasingly becoming part of employment benefits.

“We took part in the four-day week pilot project in 2024 and decided to continue at the end because the objectives were met and people were happier,” Sofia explains. Employees kept the same salary while working four days a week and can choose which day to take off — several chose days next to the weekend.

The company also added hybrid working and small benefits — from a voucher for a laundry next to the company (“we are talking to other shops in more areas to stimulate the small business community around us”) to a 100-euro IKEA voucher for when an employee moves house. The next step is a programme focused on mental health. “Each generation has its own way of thinking and we have to adapt,” says Sofia Cardoso, who says CRIUS is able to retain people from the region. Asked how salaries compare with the market in which it operates, Sofia Cardoso said they “are aligned with market values in the Tâmega and Sousa region, taking into account the roles and responsibilities of each employee”.

More time can mean a four-day week or more holidays — larger companies also use this form of compensation. “Some companies allow employees to buy up to 10 extra days of holiday, while others offer everyone an additional Friday off each month,” says Ana Amado of WTW.

Natixis, which belongs to the French financial group BPCE, which acquired Novo Banco, is an example of a company that prioritises time alongside other benefits: on top of 25 days of holiday, it offers two extra days to employees with two years' service and three more (non-cumulative) to those with more than four years (the company did not respond to SÁBADO).

In the supermarket sector, Spain's Mercadona decided this year to grant an additional five days of holiday on top of the 24 days (22, plus two for those who never missed work) to its 7,500 employees in Portugal and more than 102,000 in Spain. The measure applies to employees with positive performance reviews — which a company source says is “the overwhelming majority” — but next year (when the change becomes permanent) it will be “granted to all employees”. The relative value of having more time as a benefit may vary according to each person's profile, but it appears to be firmly below the value of receiving more money, especially for lower-paid positions. Mercadona, which pays above the sector average, will pay an extra month's salary this year (due to its good 2025 results), in addition to an annual bonus that may amount to another one or two salaries depending on length of service. When SÁBADO asked a store employee from the Spanish chain whether they preferred an extra week of holiday or another half month's salary, the anonymous response was unequivocal: “I would rather have the money.” In their case, extra time is good, but the bonus is what “makes a person want to work harder because they receive more”. The downside is “that a lot of it goes to taxes and Social Security”, they say.

The growing involvement of employers in employees' private lives raises confidentiality issues, which the companies that responded to SÁBADO implicitly acknowledged. Merck and Fidelidade, for example, said that records of requests for fertility treatment support or assistance for sick relatives are formally kept separate from management's direct knowledge.

Why more benefits?

In external communications, companies tend to publicise some of the new benefits they provide, particularly those relating to social areas. More and more companies, especially multinationals, publish documents showing the total compensation paid to employees, including the value of non-salary benefits. The difference between the payroll in the strict sense and total compensation can amount to thousands of euros per year. Publicising this total amount helps “employees understand the true value of their benefit packages”, noted consultancy AON in its 2025 annual compensation report.

So what is the motivation for expanding social benefits and focusing them more closely on the needs of different groups of employees? The altruism of the managers behind these projects may be genuine, but for a profit-making company, expanding benefits serves several specific labour-policy objectives: attracting and retaining workers (the more closely a person's life is linked to the company, the less incentive there is to leave or see performance deteriorate), preventing absences due to burnout leave (in the case of mental health and time benefits) or employees being unavailable for work (in the case of carers of sick relatives and parents of young children). Flexible benefits, in turn, make it cheaper for companies to pay employees when part of regular pay — typically variable pay — is provided through this system.

Another important point is the distinction between an employer with good benefits and a good employer. Labour lawyer Miguel Correia da Silva, who has extensive experience representing both companies and employees from different professional backgrounds, says he has seen “horrible things” in large companies with a “beautiful front”, built around non-salary benefits. The lawyer says that in labour disputes he has seen companies unilaterally revoke benefits — and, in court, some are harder to claim as credits than straightforward salary.

“I always warn my clients not to get caught up in ‘corporate niceness’, and not to forget that this [employment] is a contractual relationship and that, when the time comes to face reality, the purpose is profit,” he says. He also stresses that a test involving the impact of Artificial Intelligence on employment is coming soon — larger companies, which have better benefits, are among those adopting AI earlier, according to AON's 2025 report.

“A somewhat visceral relationship”

Caveats aside, beneficiaries of more sophisticated or generous support tend to view their employer's attitude positively. “When we feel that a company is also present at important moments in our lives, our willingness to contribute to its growth naturally increases,” Márcia Gomes of DST Group said in a written response. “In my case, it greatly strengthened my sense of belonging,” she adds.

Bruno Mateus — who received support from Merck during his cancer treatment and for the treatment related to his second child, who is on the way — speaks of the “perhaps somewhat visceral relationship” he has with the company. In addition to recognising the benefits he received, the fact that he works for a pharmaceutical company with many medicines in the fertility and oncology fields — and therefore had an opportunity to move into an oncology position — strengthens that sense of connection. “My work is in areas that have touched and continue to touch my life,” he explains. “It has a very strong purpose and I am extremely motivated,” he concludes.

Bank of Portugal

Non-salary benefits in the public sector = controversy

When non-salary benefits are paid in the public sector, they typically attract political and media controversy. On the 16th of this month, BdP responded to a parliamentary request from the Socialist Party confirming that governor Álvaro Santos Pereira benefited from a car loan on special terms from the BdP — a benefit applicable to all BdP employees (there are more than 200 new loans each year).