10 things we learned at REBA’s Future Forum 2024

REBA’s Future Forum, held on 21 November 2024 in London, examined the most pressing issues and emerging trends that will shape the workplace and define reward and employee benefits needs in 2025 and beyond. 

Filled with outstanding speaker content, lively debates, candid discussion groups, and new for 2024 masterclass sessions, REBA Future Forum 2024 was the perfect opportunity to assess the future landscape and understand what it means for your business and employees.

Here’s 10 things we learnt from yesterday’s conference. 

There are unified workplace desires across different generations 

Reward practitioners are often told they need to adapt their employee value proposition for the next generation of the workforce, yet there’s more similarity than people realise, argued Morag Lynagh, former global future of work director at Unilever. 

She said: “Employers don’t necessarily need to think about different benefits for each generation, but instead how they market what they are offering to different groups of the workforce. 

“At Unilever, we introduced a new employment model that gives people who want a different kind of lifestyle the opportunity to work with Unilever in a flexible way. 

“Our original thinking was how could we support older workers who needed or wanted to work differently so we could retain access to their knowledge and skills but we quickly realised, even before we launched it, that the desire for flexibility is universal.”

Many employees feel their benefits are not relevant to them

With the rise of digitalisation, our expectations for personal relevance have skyrocketed.

Michele Häusler, head of customer experience and growth for Zurich Integrated Benefits, said:

“According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. This high level of expectation carries over to the workplace.

“In this context, it’s not entirely surprising – but still quite concerning – that few employees feel that their benefits align with what is relevant to them.

“Fortunately, technology not only fuels the expectations for a more personalised benefits experience but also holds great potential to help us meet these expectations. Employees are indeed willing to share their personal data if they see a direct benefit.” 

AI is the gamechanger we’ve been waiting for

AI certainly isn’t new, but we are now rapidly seeing its impact on the reward and benefits space.

Evan Harris, co-founder and CEO of Peppy, said: “AI opens up a whole new world for communicating personal comms.”

From better, personalised communications, to benefits analysis, and disseminating information in an easy-to-access way, AI can give employees and employers alike time back.

Samantha Sergent, director, international benefits at Microsoft, said: “There’s a lot of hope and excitement about what’s going to happen with employee engagement. What happens in the 12-18 months will be exponential.”

But before we get too carried away…

The panellists did offer some words of caution.

First, you need to consider what you’re telling the AI. As Sergent noted: “If what you’re putting into your AI isn’t great then you need to rethink your content strategy. AI needs as much detail as possible.”

She argued that employers need to go back to the basics and work out what you need to build before you even put AI in front of it. 

It’s also important to vigorously test outputs to ensure it doesn’t provide the wrong answer. 

“We own responsibility for the outputs,” she said. 

Peter Frampton, global head of talent, performance and reward at Teneo, added that AI can also be used to support pay decisions. But managers are still accountable. 

“The manager needs to own pay decisions. AI can nudge and help with these decisions and chatbots can check decisions against policies,” he said.

Data needs to be questioned 

Stats can be manipulated but stats can also tell people what’s true, said Tim Harford, Financial Times’ Undercover Economist and BBC Radio 4 More or Less Presenter, during his keynote address.

“We should take statistics seriously, and we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of always falling into debunking mode,” he said. 

To do that, rewards and benefits professionals need to think clearly about data, “to tell the difference between truth and lies”, and ultimately make better decisions.

Here are Harford’s three pieces of advice to help people think more clearly about statistical claims:
1. Calm. Data is often presented in a way to provoke an emotional reaction. Be mindful of the emotion it triggered. Doing simple maths can make you better informed.
2. Context. What do these numbers mean? Before you understand your benefits you need to understand the context. 
3. Curiosity. Use data as a map to answer questions. This will transform how you think about data. You have to be curious to find out what you want to know.

Pay transparency - not see through, yet

The EU Pay Transparency Directive was top of mind at this year’s Future Forum, as employers begin their journeys to understand and implement the legislative change. 

Key to these regulations is a conversation around benefits transparency.

All employee benefits will have to be included as part of transparency reporting, including pensions, insurances and even minor on-site discretionary benefits such as staff canteens. 

Collating all of the required information and understanding who receives what, and why, will take time. 

Although this will be challenging, employers should view this as an opportunity to enhance your inclusive benefits strategy and consider benefits in a global context.

Each European country has until June 2026 to put these regulations into local legislation, yet no country has yet published this.

Get started on your pay equity data collection as soon as possible 

“Just because your pay is well defined does not mean you don’t have a problem,” said Ross Elmsly, head of solution advisory at Beqom, during his session on demystifying pay equity. 

Connected to the upcoming changes around pay transparency is the need for employers to take a closer look at pay equity. Not only is the EU tightening up its rules, but so too is the UK. 

In the UK employers will be required to detail how they plan to address their gender pay gaps - placing the need for pay equity firmly on the agenda.

Employers will need to consider how they define work of equal value and get a good understanding of their pay data to identify problem areas. 

“You don’t need perfect data to start,” said Elmsly. “The sooner you start the sooner you can identify action to take. Even if your data isn’t perfect you can still take action to close gaps and do the right thing.”

Employers need to challenge rising healthcare premiums 

Many sessions touched on medical inflation and the impact this has on private medical insurance (PMI) premiums.

Delegates were encouraged to challenge insurers to get the best deal for their workplace, plus consider new products coming onto the market. 

David Collington, partner and head of benefit consulting at Barnett Waddingham, said: 

“Think about the different alternatives out there for your workforce. Do you need a sophisticated healthcare offering, or do you just need good diagnostics and screening?

“Times are definitely changing for PMI and the next few years will see many more products launched onto the market to help employers, for example hospital groups developing whole of workforce solutions.” 

Wellbeing balance may not be quite right in some organisations 

Wellbeing washing is a term that regularly crops up. But what does it really mean? 

For Graham Meinke, chief product and innovation officer at Zest, too many wellbeing strategies focus on the person and not the organisation’s culture.

Addressing the root cause of poor wellbeing that employers can control, such as job demands and resources, is fundamental to a balanced wellbeing strategy. 

“This is about getting people to do what they do better,” he said.

Employers absolutely want wellbeing benefits to support them. But this needs to be balanced with a broader proposition to address employee wellbeing that covers people policies, community; purpose, and how people connect to the organisation.

Job design will need to change to attract top talent 

As the workforce ages, reward practitioners should expect more people in the workforce to work in different ways. 

Delegates were told that the five day working week is old news and if they want to get the most out of the increasingly diverse workforce, they need to offer flexible working patterns.

Reward practitioners were encouraged to “be brave and curious”, with panellists citing incredible results when employers embrace diversity in job design.