There are certain laws that apply to the offering of benefits to employees, so it is essential to check local and industry regulations before tweaking availability requirements. However, there are certainly some ways to make benefits packages stretch a little further without actually having to pay for additional coverage or a more varied and diverse set of plans and services.
For instance, many companies elect to withhold things like health insurance from employees until they qualify for it, usually over the course of a three-month period. The use of this sabbatical is two-fold. First, it lets companies make sure that they're hiring someone worth keeping on for a long time. Without that foreknowledge, they'd be constantly wasting both the cost of premiums for that coverage and the resources used to take a worker on and off the books quickly.
Secondly, this absence of services also serves to trim just enough of the time a person might be covered off the beginning of her employment. Employers might feel that one month is surely enough time to accurately judge the work ethic and skills of a particular worker, but a lengthier waiting period can keep companies from spending money on staff members the moment that their employment begins.
