Why we need more sizzle and less sausage when it comes to employee engagement

When talking about employee engagement I often talk about selling the “sizzle” (the benefits), not the “sausage” (the features). Having a background in design and marketing, I know the best way to sell a product is to get the end user imagining themselves enjoying the experience. Communicating your employee benefits is no different.

Being from the North, I obviously love a bit of gravy on my sausages. Coincidentally, a good advert that portrays the message I’m trying to convey is the Bisto Gravy advert. Next time you see it, you’ll notice that you never really see the gravy and they don’t really speak about the ‘features’ of the gravy either: there’s little mention of what it’s made from or even what it tastes like.

What you do get to see and feel though, is a close knit family enjoying their time together and when the gravy is finally poured, you can almost smell it. This is a perfect example of how they’ve focussed on the benefits and not the features of their product.

With this is mind, if you were to look at the last communication you sent out to your employees about one of their benefits, are you confident you haven’t fallen into the trap of just communicating the features?

Applying the concept to employee benefits

When I’m sat with our communications team designing new communications for our clients, we always start with the benefits and try to make sure the split is 10% features and 90% benefits.

It starts with a whiteboard with a line down the middle; you put the benefits on the left and features on the right. This is something you can do not only with your employee benefits but also with the services or products your business offers.

One of the main challenges the employee benefits industry has had, and will always have, is getting young people to save for their futures. With the introduction of auto-enrolment, employers now have a platform to build on, and with over 1 million employers providing workplace pensions, and over 9 million employees auto-enrolled, it’s now over to you – the employer – to help your employees save for their futures.

Here’s where you need to sell the benefits and not the features to get your employees engaged, whether that be for your pension scheme or your protection, health and wellbeing benefits.

Albert Einstein and pension millionaires

There’s no point beating around the bush – young people find pensions boring. It’s always going to be a challenge getting them engaged, let alone getting them to contribute enough to save for their future.

One of the most engaging presentations we run at the moment is based around Einstein's 8^th wonder - compound interest (the feature). It shows people the power of compound returns on their pension. It sounds pretty boring and quite number heavy, but when we strip all the jargon out and apply numbers that are affordable, the audience is often surprised at how achievable becoming a pension millionaire can be (the benefit). It just takes time and a mentality of saving little and often.

Here are 3 tips to help you make your messages and delivery more engaging.

1) Get your audience engaged

Get interactive with your approach to delivering your message. Don’t fall in to the quick and easy approach of just sending out insurer information by email.

Ask your people questions that will get them thinking
Find out what they want and what gets them engaged
If you’re delivering a group presentation, make sure you’re not doing all the talking. Your audience should be asking and answering questions to make them feel involved and make the presentation beneficial for them personally

2) Excite and inspire them

The best way to get someone excited by a topic is to express your own excitement in it.

Get your managers to champion your benefits so they can relay the message downwards
Use real life case studies. Rather than just dishing out the facts, tell a story – one that shows the success of your benefits working
Make sure every communication gives your employees the opportunity to find out more and have a clear call to action

“Make them cry, make them laugh, do anything but make them feel something”- Jim Harvey

3) Avoid long-winded messages

If you’re just about to send an email that’s going to take half an hour to read then hold fire.

Keep your message concise and jargon free focussing on the benefits and a few features. As a rule of thumb keep your emails no more than 200 words and keep your presentations around the 30 minute mark. Any more than this and you’ll find your people switching off
Use imagery but use it well. Your visuals should clearly point to what’s most important in your message, don’t convolute your visuals with complex graphs and diagrams, or too many focal points
Give the recipient the opportunity to find out more, but only if they want to

How good are your communications?

This exercise is a simple one. It should only take a couple of minutes and it’s a great way of seeing what position you’re in.

Print out the last communication you sent out to your employees regarding one of your employee benefits
Grab two highlighter pens, one green and one pink.
Highlight every benefit in green and every feature in pink.

Lots of green? If your page is full of green highlighter pen, then it looks like you’re doing a great job with your communications.

Lots of pink? If your page is more pink than green, then you might want to switch the focus slightly to reflect the benefits.

For more information on increasing engagement with your employee benefits click here.

Martin Shaw is marketing manager at Johnson Fleming.

This article was provided by Johnson Fleming.