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With the cost of living crisis hitting hard, what can employers do to help employees?

I’ve always been a strong advocate for employee share schemes (ESS), having benefited from a Save As You Earn (SAYE) scheme at a previous employer. Yet, the latest figures from HMRC suggest that the number of companies using these schemes is beginning to stagnate and in some instances drop.

A vision for the future. Every company has one. But how do you translate that vision into the enthusiasm needed to drive staff to help your business achieve it? How do you get them to care – and care enough to see it through?

Employee share save schemes can be an excellent way to engage employees with the success of an organisation, as well as enabling them to build up a savings pot. However, often take-up has been poor as employees are unsure of how to get involved, or lack knowledge about how they work.

Your business is unique. Your culture is unique. Your staff are unique. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. So how do you go about setting up a share plan designed to engage, align and retain employees across the world?

The coronavirus pandemic. Changing workforce demographics. Brexit. The issues faced by organisations and their employees in 2021 are a world away from those experienced 10, five or even two years ago. The world has changed – as have workforce expectations. It follows that employers need to change too. At the heart of this is one simple question: are your current benefit programmes still delivering what your people need?

Share save schemes have always tended to be popular amongst employees. To enjoy their full benefit though, employers need to help their people understand and appreciate the role of such schemes in long-term investing.

Managing cashflow has become a critical issue for many organisations during the pandemic, with many deferring, reducing or cancelling planned pay reviews this year. Although employees might understand the practical reality of these commercial decisions, it doesn't stop them wondering, with no pay rises on the horizon, how their employer will show them that they continued to be valued.

With the pandemic far from over, and job security a rare privilege, fostering financial wellbeing in the workplace is no easy task. Figures from Yorkshire Building Society indicate COVID-19 has widened the financial wellbeing gap, with 21% of UK adults saying they are unable to save at all, compared to just 12% in 2019.

A panel of employers and experts discussed practical (and free) ways employers can help engage lower paid employees to  improve their  financial wellbeing at REBA's Employee Wellbeing Congress.

An area on which we, as a professional body, have focused in recent weeks has been the way in which organisations have been trying to address the impact of COVID-19 on their sustainability activities and, given ProShare’s interest in share plans, the associated impact on these.

Responsible Reward covers a wide philosophy that connects the external environment, business practice and remuneration. This stemmed from Responsible Investment, which is part of the Global UN Sustainable Development Goals initiative. It explicitly acknowledges ESG (environmental, social and governance) factors to the performance and profitability and long-term health and stability of the business and of the market/sector it operates within.

With the UK plunging into a profound recession, executive reward packages look set to come under even greater scrutiny. For public companies, this is going to mean performing a precarious balancing act that both keeps investors happy and incentivises executives to demonstrate strong leadership in the face of unprecedented challenges.

Many organisations use performance-based bonuses to reward employees when they or the company has performed well. This is an approach which has existed for decades, but organisations are increasingly questioning whether this is a sustainable form of reward, or whether they should move towards longer-term incentives.

The Executive Pay in the FTSE 100 report from the CIPD and the High Pay Centre finds the median salary among the leaders of the UK’s biggest 100 listed firms was £3.61 million in the financial year ending (FYE) 2019, down marginally on FYE 2018, but the lowest it’s been since 2011.

REBA’s recent webinar series reported a renewed interest by companies in all-employee share plans over recent months, with a view to ensuring employees – particularly key workers, from the health service to retail, transportation and beyond – have a stake in the business to which they contribute. “If you have confidence in your company and believe that share prices could increase, access to share plans can prove rewarding and motivating,” says Jennifer Rudman, industry director, employee share plans at EQ.

To enable us to develop efficient ways to engage, motivate and support employees as we emerge from lockdown, it is useful to consider the reactive changes to wellbeing initiatives which have been made as a result of coronavirus. Global benefits like Zoom Yoga classes have emerged to support mental and physical wellbeing, but how have companies tackled financial and community wellbeing? The answer may lie with share plans…