Amid one of the tightest labor markets in U.S. history, employers begin their annual employee-benefits enrollment drives this week with a menu of options designed to get workers to stay and desperately needed job applicants to climb aboard.

Employers across Minnesota and other states are stacking their usual health, dental, vision and 401(k) benefits with fresh perks: tuition reimbursement, more time off, flexible schedules, expanded mental health offerings, day care assistance, remote work options and even a few surprises like pet insurance.

With the pandemic's upheaval, the move toward employee-assistance programs (EAPs) could have been anticipated. What wasn't expected? Benefits for pets. Yes. Pets.

"That is a new thing," said Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) adviser John Dooney. "Companies are being pressured by employees to offer pet insurance. What has happened during the pandemic is many employees were lonely and adopted pets in their homes. So employees are interested in that now" and employers are listening.

The added employee benefits come as American companies are painfully short staffed. At the end of October, U.S. employers had 10.4 million jobs to fill, but only 7.7 million available workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Minnesota employers reported a record 205,000 job vacancies in the second quarter of 2021, an 84% jump from the prior year, state officials announced last week.

"Employee benefits will likely play a stronger-than-ever role in attracting talent to organizations, as organizations experience a 2021 'turnover tsunami,' with more U.S. workers quitting their jobs than at any time in at least two decades," according to a recent report by the 300,000-member SHRM.

With 52% of Americans considering leaving their jobs, "employers are trying to figure out ways of retaining people. And it's not just through providing merit bonuses, but really looking at ways to engage employees," Dooney said.

SHRM Chief of Staff Emily Dickens said more EAPs are offering coverage for mental health services.

"We have 50 million workers who are Generation Xers who are taking care of both children and parents," she said. It's why "these new programs have really focused on mental health care."

Some companies are giving workers more than three free phone calls to a mental health professional a year. Others have added a mental health or personal day to their paid time-off roster. Some have created worker stipends. Still others are "setting aside funds employees can allocate for child care or adult day care," Dickens said.

While large corporations like 3M, Target and General Mills have long offered workers some type of EAP, the benefit is now hitting small firms, Dooney said.

Plymouth-based Maud Borup, which has 200 workers and needs 100 more, just bought 7 acres of land next to its Le Center, Minn., candy factory. Part of a 130,000-square-foot addition — set to open next year — it will boast a day care/pre-school facility for their workers' children.

"Child care is a huge issue. With COVID, a lot of the day centers shut down and never opened. So it's mostly our moms who have to stay home to take care of the kids," spokeswoman Karen Edwards said. "It's one of the problems we are having with employee shortages."

To keep up, the $50 million chocolate factory told employees they could volunteer to work Saturdays. Those who do get paid plus receive a $50 gift card for every Saturday worked. "So they can get an extra $200 a month in cards on top of their pay," Edwards said.

Installed Building Products, which is based in Ohio and has home insulation, gutter and garage-door installation crews across Minnesota, opened its benefit-enrollment period Monday. Now officials are getting quotes so they can offer 9,200 workers discounted access to a network of child care and adult-day care providers.

"I am hearing the need from our current employees [and wondered] how do we facilitate providing that service to workers who have challenges with child care and adult care?," said Installed's Vice President of Human Resources Jason Lawson.

Lawson, who needs to hire roughly 400 more installation technicians, hopes to have the benefit in place by June.

In human resources there is a "philosophy that says the best way to deal with your hiring issues is to not lose employees," Lawson said. "So if I can do more to provide people who are already employed by me the ability [to find daycare], I would like to find a way to do that."

With COVID, U.S. companies offering family-leave benefits shot from 34% in 2019 to 53% last year and are on pace to raise higher this year, according to a recent SHRM survey of human resource professionals at 2,504 companies.

Some employers are tackling workers' family needs by adding flexibility. Red Wing Shoes announced it will let most of its 2,000 workers schedule their own work shifts in four-hour blocks.

Wyoming Machine's sheet metal shop in Stacy, Minn., is also letting workers chose their own hours, a perk rarely offered by a small business with just 60 or so workers.

"I am hoping that being more flexible with hours and schedules will produce more job candidates," said co-owner Traci Tapani, who has joined her own production line during the worker shortage. "The labor market is so tight right now that it's almost impossible to even find someone to interview."

To help keep and attract workers, accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers has said it will allow 40,000 of its 55,000 U.S. employees to permanently work remotely from anywhere in the world.

Target Corp, Best Buy, Cargill, Radisson Hotel Group, Dorsey & Whitney and Fredrikson & Byron are just a few Minnesota-based firms that will adopt hybrid work models even after the pandemic fades and the "return to work" stage begins in earnest.

"If we can be innovative and open and flexible, it will benefit U.S. workers for years to come, Dickens said.