4 key steps to creating benefits that drive employee engagement
Employee engagement has become a hot topic. Defining the desired employee experience and achieving a strong level of job satisfaction are crucial in increasing productivity, reducing absenteeism and assisting both recruitment and retention.
The employee working week has changed dramatically since the Covid-19 pandemic. Whether workers are based in an office, depot, factory or at home, employers have thought hard over the past couple of years about creating new working environments to enable employees to be effective, while also giving them an element of flexibility.
How that manifests is constantly changing and will be different for each company. For example, more than 90% of the companies that took part after last year’s four-day working week trial are still offering it.
Two-thirds of those companies had fewer than 25 employees and it remains to be seen whether it will work for larger companies, but condensing hours into a four-day week still be a way for smaller businesses to differentiate in the market if they’re unable to pay top salaries.
When laying out an employee value proposition (EVP), a lot of attention is being paid to employees’ mental, social and financial health and wellbeing. This is a multi-faceted mesh of considerations which needs to be able to flex and cater for every worker in each demographic.
Here are four key elements to help drive employee engagement and satisfaction.
1. Know your employees
Only by looking under the bonnet of your operation can you expect to move beyond assumptions of what your workers want. In asking employees and taking the time to listen, we can measure key drivers for satisfaction, performance and turnover.
Focus groups are a good way to gain a deeper understanding. Workshops, surveys and feedback forms also work, as do exit interviews. Only by gaining this level of honest insight can we understand any challenges we face in recruitment and retention and highlight common misalignments between the expectation and the reality of an EVP.
2. Know your company demographic
Beyond knowing how our staff feel, it is also vitally important for company leaders to understand their workforce demographic. By analysing the overall worker profile – for example by gender, ethnicity, age, tenure, level and family status – leaders and HR directors can plan and deliver an overall reward and benefits package that can flex to meet workers’ needs.
If a company gets this right, it should be able to motivate workers at various stages of the employment cycle, whether it’s a 22-year-old apprentice looking to trade in holiday entitlement, or a 60-year-old contemplating their retirement date and looking to make increased pension contributions.
3. Support, protect and connect
Even five or 10 years ago, a benefits package often boiled down to a pension, health insurance and a gym membership and that was largely because companies were not taking the time to understand their workers. Today, armed with better knowledge, business leaders are building EVPs that provide those core benefits, but can also support and protect in a variety of new ways.
Discounts and savings – In taking advantage of new digital HR platforms, companies can make employee pay go further. Apps such as HAPI enable HR to send staff savings and discount vouchers for groceries, high street brands, eye tests or eating out.
Financial support - Beyond these immediate savings, companies can also offer workers additional peace of mind and help them build financial resilience through a variety of key support services – workshops, confidential helplines, online resources – in relation to financial planning, debt management and loans.
Physical and mental wellbeing – increasingly, companies are seeing these two elements through the same lens. Gym membership and cycle-to-work schemes can encourage activity and a better work-life balance for a certain cross-section, while mindfulness courses and advice around healthy eating can apply to every employee, regardless of age or background. Increasingly, EAPs also provide support online or over the telephone, from online GPs to life coaching and counselling.
Social network – In the best examples, underpinning all of this is an effort to connect workers with each other and the business. Recognition schemes are widely adopted as part of the EVP to encourage workers and managers to nominate peers, reward strong performance and champion the kind of contagious behaviour that drives company culture.
By their nature, these programmes also drive employee engagement through feedback and a sense of ‘having their say’.
4. The digital dimension
In the same way that seeking input is key to understanding a workforce, the ability to communicate with employees anywhere and everywhere is crucial, and these days that tends to mean going digital.
Recognition schemes certainly work best ‘live’ and in the moment, but offering your entire reward and benefits package through a smartphone app is the only way to put everything – from pay slips and holidays to vouchers and salary sacrifice – in the palm of every staff member’s hand, 24/7.
With push notifications and instant messaging, not only can you reach employees at the optimum time, you also break down any barriers for remote workers. And with analytics tools enabling the measurement of every interaction and initiative, constant evolution and improvement is almost guaranteed.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Innecto Reward Consulting
We have more than 20 years' experience in getting employers' pay and reward working harder for them.
