×
First-time login tip: If you're a REBA Member, you'll need to reset your password the first time you login.
20 Sep 2018
by Dawn Lewis

Want to justify the need to personalise employee benefits? Look at the mounting pile of evidence

Discussions about personalising benefits and benefits communications are not new. Many reward professionals have been striving to achieve this objective for years, but with developments in technology including better data analysis and the growth of AI, personalisation is becoming a whole lot easier.

 

FB59-1537301938_WanttojustifytheneedtopersonaliseMAIN.jpg

 

Yet, before investing in new technologies and strategies to make this happen, you may need to prove to the board that personalised benefits are worth the effort. Recent reports from Capita, Mercer and ourselves have demonstrated that more and more employers are moving to personalise their benefits and are reaping the rewards of doing so.

Businesses are already committing to benefits personalisation

The REBA Technology Survey 2017/18  was conducted by the Reward & Employee Benefits Association in conjunction with JLT Employee Benefits. It showed that 37.7 per cent of those surveyed are focussing their efforts on personalisation of employee communications in the next twelve months.

The study also found that nearly two-thirds (64.5 per cent) said that technology could make the biggest impact on increasing employee understanding of the value of their reward.

Employees value a personalised approach

Capita’s Workplace Benefits report further highlights the need to demonstrate the relevance and value of benefits It found that 75 per cent of employees expect their employer to provide guidance on the benefits they offer, as well as on how appropriate each benefit might be for them and their family.

Providing guidance on benefits not only allows employers to correctly position them, but it also feeds into the need to personalise benefits and deliver a consumer-grade experience.

Personalised benefits support talent management

Mercer’s Healthy, Wealthy and Work-Wise: The New Imperatives for Financial Security report warns that, “those unable or unwilling to fully utilise all populations – or to look beyond typical programmes when considering how to best support or enable all employees – will lose out on valuable talent”.

It argues that digital tools should not take a one-size-fits-all approach and should not just be used for basic modelling and information. Instead, “technology must utilise data to make offerings more personalised and relevant to individuals”.

Personalising benefits is not a straight-forward task, but it is one that is worthwhile undertaking.

To learn more about the trend to personalise employee benefits, register to attend REBA’s Innovation Day, taking place on 22 November at County Hall, London.

The REBA Reports Library has hundreds of reports, surveys and other handy documents pulled together from a myriad government departments, academics, independent organisations and suppliers. We have pulled them together for our members to use to find the data they need to support business cases, presentations and other reward work.

Dawn Lewis is content editor at the Reward & Employee Benefits Association. 

Related topics