How to make benefits personal
Our recent Global Employee Benefits Watch research revealed there is growing employee expectation for benefits that support life goals, such as buying a house, improving mental wellbeing or looking after finances – to name a few! Couple this with the fact that employees’ have become more digitally focused, increasing numbers of employers are realising they need to adapt their approach to benefits to really engage their people. As a result, more and more companies are starting to prioritise delivering a benefits programme in a streamlined, technology-enabled way to meet the individual needs of their people.
What has the biggest impact on engagement?
Employees who feel unsupported by their employer are less likely to engage with the business and their work as a whole. So, when considering what approach is best for your people, it’s important to consider their needs at different life stages and understand how you can support them.
For example, traditional financial benefits such as pensions meet the immediate needs of an older workforce, but not those of millennials. Younger employees in particular aren’t receiving the support they’re looking for from their employers – and this is a real missed opportunity. According to our research, just over 40 per cent of young people want to buy a home and nearly 50 per cent are saving for a holiday, yet less than 10 per cent of employers offer support to meet these goals.
When it comes to improving general wellness, 44 per cent of the workforce has the goal of getting fit and healthy, yet not even half think that their employer supports them in reaching it. That’s one of the reasons why companies are turning to ‘wellness pots’ to give employees the flexibility to spend a set amount of money on anything that helps improve their individual wellbeing – cultivating a culture of wellness within the workplace.
The importance of helping employees to meet their goals and supporting their wellbeing is undeniable. Employees who say that their benefits needs are met were 76 per cent more likely to be making use of the wellbeing initiatives at work. Meeting employees’ needs has a big engagement pay off, as they are twice as likely to recommend their employer to a friend, say they have a positive experience at work and be proud to work for their company.
Making it as easy as possible
Many employers don’t fully understand that to really engage their people they need to allow them to access their benefits at any time, in any place, to make it as easy as possible for them to take advantage of what’s on offer.
For example, providing employees with access to software that gives them a clear view of their total reward will help them understand the true value of their benefits package and the level of support you provide beyond their basic pay. Also, by having customised benefits information in one easy-to-access place, they are more likely to engage with the benefits that have the biggest impact on their lives, strengthening their connection to you.
Make it personal
To ensure your people stay engaged and get the most from their benefits, you must focus on the individual. But, where do we start I hear you say? There are some quick wins that you can action right away. For example, opening special benefits selection windows for employees who have just moved house, or promoting your childcare vouchers to parents recently back from parental leave.
In the longer-term, employers can build a tailored approach to their benefits programme through technology. By using the rich data that global benefits software provides, employers can analyse the success of different benefits and initiatives across countries, groups and even people. This information can be used to identify uptake patterns, and ensure only the most relevant benefits are delivered to each employee. This also helps you better manage budgets and prove ROI on your benefits spend, ensuring continued investment in benefits that have the biggest impact on your people. Win-win!
Encouraging benefits engagement
Once you have taken the time and steps detailed above to really understand your employees’ wants and needs, you can build a benefits strategy centred around engagement. The final step is to ensure this new offering is effectively communicated to your people. Employees can only engage with benefits if they know they’re there.
As we’ve seen, the best way to encourage engagement through benefits is to provide a positive user experience at every step of the employee journey. From providing a benefits programme that meets your employees’ wants and needs and supports their overall wellbeing, to delivering it through easy-to-understand consumer-grade software, a personalised and individual approach is critical for employee engagement.
The message is clear: get personal with your people and you’ll reap rewards in employee engagement, attraction, and retention.
Author is Chris Bruce, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Thomsons Online Benefits.
This article was provided by Thomsons Online Benefits.