How to invest in the best technology when introducing benefits on a budget
Benefits teams may have a plethora of ideas in order to improve employee engagement, but feel restricted by a small budget. Luckily, this doesn't have to be the case. Organisations don't need to cut back or offer second rate benefits just because they don't have much to spend.
Yes, it's true that in the modern day workplace, benefits and technology go hand in hand. Whilst this does mean that organisations need to be careful with what benefits they offer in order to make sure they get the most bang for their buck, it doesn't mean that the quality of the benefits or technology implemented have to suffer. Here are our top tips on how to embrace technology when introducing benefits on a budget.
1) Avoid fads
It can be quite tempting to jump on the bandwagon every time a new bit of technology is introduced in the world of benefits. When it was recently announced that an organisation in Sweden had implemented microchips in staff to make it easier to make purchases, there was sure to be a few benefits teams who were considering how to make this work for them.
When you have a limited budget, you need to consider what the long term return will be for each pound spent. Fads can be exciting, but how will they work for you in the long term? Some staff may love the latest hi tech microchips to order their lasagne at lunch, but what about those who feel like it's just another way to monitor behaviour and performance in the workplace?
Not to say that all technology benefits are championed by Big Brother, there are some long standing technology benefits that can improve the lives of staff and help productivity levels. Take salary sacrifice home technology for example - giving staff access to the latest technology which they may not have been able to previously afford, allows them to develop their IT skills which can only be good for business.
In fact, a recent survey conducted by Let's Connect found that 89% of respondents who had purchased a technology product through a salary sacrifice scheme, would not have bought the product elsewhere because they could not afford to buy the item outright. So if your budget is tight, make sure to weigh up the wider benefits of any spend, both for the employee and the employer in both the short and the long-term.
2) Two birds with one stone
If you want to introduce other tech related benefits but also want to make sure you are creating a positive impact on organisational performance, ensure you kill two birds will one stone by implementing initiatives that engage staff as well as being good for business.
Wearable technology is a growing trend and HR teams are jumping onboard to make an active attempt at improving their employee physical wellness. A client of ours recently offered a JawBone fitness tracker to every member of staff in a bid to get them happier and healthier at work. As a result, they took an active interest in making sure staff completed a certain number of steps a day (with a few competitions thrown in for good measure), which made staff more engaged at work.
For organisations looking for a lower cost option this may tick the box as it is a relatively cheap device that can be offered to staff in place of a potentially more expensive all-encompassing holistic health and wellbeing programme. It may be inexpensive, but what it lacks in cost, it makes up for in impact.
Studies have shown that showing an interest in staff's wellbeing can vastly improve productivity in the workplace. Professor Alex Edmans, professor of finance at London Business School, found that companies with high employee wellbeing and engagement outperformed their peers by 2.3%-3.8% year on year.
So you can put a price on wellbeing and it doesn't have to cost the earth if you use the right technology to get staff on board.
3) One size doesn't fit all
When it comes to benefits technology, you must always remember that one size doesn't fit all. With more generations in the workplace than ever before (GenHQ, 2015), you must make sure that you consider how different benefits will be received by each of the generations in the workplace.
Developing a benefits platform for staff is a great idea, but what about younger staff who expect the latest in technology as a minimum? They are the 'always on' generation who expect to be connected to everything all the time, whether through their phone, watch or multiple social networks.
For this reason, you must make sure you invest in the right technology combined with a cost effective communications infrastructure (more about that later). An app can be relatively inexpensive and it means that staff can access their benefits anytime, anywhere from their own devices, and they will appreciate that you have utilised modern and convenient tech to make things as convenient as possible.
This goes for different job roles too, all of your staff may not be office based or some may not even have access to a company email address. So when it comes to considering what technology to invest in, spend wisely, and make sure that you do what is best for your staff so it will be appreciated by all.
4) Dig into the data
The benefit of utilising benefits technology is the opportunity to dig into the data. Most technology will also provide usage data. Looking at the data means you can spend where it has the biggest impact, rather than throwing money at various benefits, data allows you to see which schemes boost the engagement scores most.
The benefit of this kind of system is the detailed analysis of which benefits are used the most, from the amount spent on discounts right down to which the services of the EAP are accessed most frequently by staff. Without this kind of technology, the amount of time and money spent on manually analysing the data would mean that there is less resource to improve the programme or address the issues at hand.
This insight is invaluable to teams that may not have the money to experiment with their benefits and need hard stats to back up what they are doing. However, with this technology comes the temptation to become reliant on numbers alone. It is so important to remember the value of face to face conversations with staff too. A combination of face to face and technology means that considerations are made for every member of staff.
5) Utilise the power of the mobile phone
Let's face it, your staff probably spend a lot of time on their mobile phones and there is not much you can do about it. Studies have shown that people are spending up to five hours a day on their smartphones, while a third of us keep our phones by our bedside so that we can check emails during the night (The Guardian, 2016). Businesses cannot afford to ignore the potential impact of the smartphone on employee productivity.
For employers, this provides a massive opportunity - one of the best ways of capturing the attention and imagination of your employees is through their smartphones. It is worth noting that of those five hours of smartphone activity each day, 90% is spent in apps (Adobe, 2016). As an employer are you making the most of this opportunity?
If you don't have the budget to give every member of staff a brand new smartphone, you can create an employee benefits app that hosts all of your benefits in one place, that staff can access via their own mobile phone. This offers up a realm of possibilities for the benefits team as you can send targeted communications to staff where they will most certainly be paying attention. Remote staff, older staff, younger staff and even disengaged staff, are bound to be onboard when you are seen to be making life easier for them by offering relevant benefits that are easily accessible on a mobile device.
So now we have demonstrated how easy it is to offer technologically enabled benefits on a budget, but you are probably thinking about how quickly you can adopt them into your organisation.
We understand this can seem daunting - there are so many ways to engage staff using technology, many of which seem to come with escalating price tags. Our advice is don't discount technology because of the perceived price tag. Using your existing technology smarter can amplify the existing programmes you already have.
Just putting your current benefits proposition into the hands of your employees, wherever and whenever they are, using the communications infrastructure you already have in place (the employees' own smartphones) can have a dramatic effect on adoption, usage and employee engagement.
One word of warning though, do not rely on technology alone. As mentioned before, the value of face to face is just as important in every in achieving true engagement, and without it your technology benefits may not be well received. This is why we send out our employee engagement team to sit down with every one of our clients' employees to ensure that they fully understand their benefits programme.
It sounds simple, and that it because it is. You don't have to break the bank to offer the latest technologically enabled benefits but in order to make it work for you, you need to invest further in an even cheaper benefits strategy - talking to your staff. It will be a long while before robots and technology take over (we hope), so relish this time to communicate with your staff and to understand which tech benefits add value and will work best for them as well as you.
This article was provided by Personal Group.
In partnership with Personal Group
Personal Group provides the latest employee benefits and wellbeing products.
