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20 Sep 2017
by Jeff Fox

How can you win the war for talent, improve staff engagement and drive better productivity?

Over the last decade, everyday life has been turned upside down by technology. Whether it's a simple task such as checking your bank balance on the move, or a startup company disrupting a decades-old business model, leisure and work have been changed beyond recognition by digital tools and processes.

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But when it comes to employee benefits, many businesses are still getting by with spreadsheets and manual processes, or fighting to pull together data from disparate systems that might do a good job in their own right, but which cannot connect to each other.

Bringing reward into the digital world should be a priority for every HR department. Without some form of online platform or strategy, you can't possibly hope to maximise the impact that your benefits have, either for the business or for the individuals who receive them.

At worst, that means company resources and money being wasted chasing business objectives that aren't properly defined, or can't be fully realised.

Why should we get a platform?

The best justification for investing in an online benefits platform - or improving on an existing offering - is to support your business strategy. If you want to win the war for talent, improve staff engagement, drive better productivity, or support broader process change within the business, investing in a benefits platform is essential.

The advantages start as soon as a new employee joins the company. If signing up for benefits becomes quick, easy and efficient it not only makes the HR department's life easier, it also gives a great first impression. New recruits can see everything that's available to them in one place, including the breadth of what's on offer and its value to them.

Once employees - new and established - are enrolled onto an online platform, there are huge opportunities to connect with them in more engaging ways. Staff are used to an online consumer experience in other parts of their life, being able to see information about anything from their bank balance to their daily step count at the exact moment that they want it. Increasingly, they will expect their employer to be able to offer that same immediacy and consumer-style experience. 

From an employer's perspective, an engaging online platform will start to drive the same types of engagement and 'stickiness' that has made online retailers such as Amazon such an integral part of people's lives. That in turn drives insights into employees' interests and priorities far beyond anything that employers have had access to in the past.

But don't stop there - once you've got a platform in place, the potential to connect with other HR systems and start using your reward data alongside other information such as holiday bookings and tracking wellness can start to drive even greater knowledge of your workforce. To complete the circle, that can help with workforce planning, recruitment - and ultimately cost savings through better data and a more streamlined, secure approach to benefits administration.

Where do we start?

There are now a wealth of online platform providers to choose from, and getting the choice right can seem daunting. Go beyond the vendor 'hype' when doing your due diligence. Check references, look at case studies and understand what you can learn from others who have already used the same provider.

Beyond these basics, investing in the correct platform for your business will be about your specific needs. It will depend on factors such as the benefits you offer, the information needs of your workforce, their expectations and your own management information needs.

How do I know if it's working?

You've assessed the market, made your choice and your online platform is up and running. Needless to say, that's not the end of the story. Setting suitable benchmarks and reviewing progress against them regularly is also important. As business needs change, a platform must also be able to change with them and continue to support the company's objectives. That could be through introducing new benefits to help meet specific goals, delivering behavioural insights to support workforce planning, and effectively communicating the range and quality of your offering to attract the right staff.

What do I do if the platform isn't doing what we need?

There are some obvious red flags to watch out for, such as errors in data, or poor connectivity with systems such as payroll. If staff are not engaging with the platform, making sure that the benefits on offer still meet their needs is an important checkpoint.

You should never be a prisoner to your provider, and ease of changing supplier is an important point to consider when investing in a platform. Reviewing and re-reviewing the market is essential to make sure that you have a system that really does do what you need.

It's also important to make sure that your benchmarks are realistic. Are you able to quantify factors such as engagement and employee appreciation effectively, so that you can understand whether the platform is delivering what you need? Making sure that you have effective modelling tools, such as Aon's The Benefits Score, so that you can understand the quality of your overall benefits strategy, how you use your data and how you compare to others in your sector are all essential if you are really going to get the most out of your online platform.

Jeff Fox is principal at Aon Employee Benefits. 

This article was provided by Aon Employee Benefits. 

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