Elevate your comms: 5 ways to drive benefits engagement
The UK has one of the least engaged workforces in Europe, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report.
This presents a real challenge, but also an opportunity for employers to think outside the box and craft meaningful communications that resonate with their employees.
Here are five ways to drive engagement with your benefits offering:
1.Make them relevant
One of the most important factors is making sure your benefits align with the needs and wants of your employees.If your benefits package is out of touch with their needs, don’t expect to see much enthusiasm when you’re trying to engage them.
An effective way of finding out what your employees value is to carry out regular surveys and feedback sessions.
When you’ve compiled the results, look for ways to implement any changes which could make your benefits more relevant to your workforce.
By making benefits more relevant, you’ll show you’re listening and value exactly what your employees want from their benefits package.
When people feel seen and heard, they’re more likely to engage with what you have to say.
If you can show them how you’re using benefits to help their issues, like the Employee Assistance Programme or healthcare benefits for example, even better.
2.Make them accessible and inclusive
Benefits should be accessible to all, so we shouldn’t be making them difficult to understand.
Ultimately, if your employees don’t know what a benefit is or how to choose it, they’re unlikely to.
As standard, use clear and simple language and avoid any jargon, make sure information is available through multiple channels such as an internal portals and email updates.
You should also ensure that design of materials are inclusive of different backgrounds.
Accessibility and inclusivity are key to making sure everyone has equal ability to take advantage of their benefits.
When benefits are easy to access and inclusive for all employees, engagement increases.
3.Make them personal
A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works.
Employees have unique needs and lifestyles, so personalisation can significantly improve engagement.
While email might work for Gen X, it might not cut it with your Gen Z workers.
At DrumRoll, we can use data insights to tailor these communications, making sure employees receive information about the benefits most relevant to them.
If they’ve already chosen a particular benefit, suggest a similar or complementary one.
At the very least, you’re raising awareness of the other benefits.
We can also provide tools where employees can explore and customise their benefits in real-time along with the ability to choose the benefits that work best for them, their family and their lifestyle.
This takes away the pressure of making decisions without knowing how it will impact them.
4.Make them engaging
Even the best benefits can be overlooked if they’re not communicated in the right way.
Engagement can be driven through creativity and interactivity.
Using storytelling to share employee experiences of benefits can help make them more relatable.
DrumRoll can also add interactive tools such as benefits calculators, virtual sessions, or short videos to drive engagement in different ways.
You know your benefits are great, so make sure you shout about that in every communication.
5.Time your engagement correctly
Timing is everything.
Employees are more likely to act when information is delivered at the right moment.
We should look to align communications with key life events such as onboarding, promotions, or family changes.
We can also be strategic with certain awareness days or when we know employees are most likely to be taking time off.
Cycle to work week provides a great opportunity to promote a cycle to work benefit and summer holidays might be a good time to highlight travel insurance.
Planning is vital here so you can engage employees at the right time – so they have enough time to buy their bike or take out travel insurance when they book their holiday, not start packing.
Some employees might well be interested in the benefit but simply need a reminder at a particular moment.
The importance of playing back
If you can play back how your benefits are making your organisation a better place, this will help build trust.
What’s more, if you can tie this into other incentives outside of your benefits offering, such as career progression, this will help make your communications less of a ‘sales pitch’ and more about what the company offers as a whole.
Driving benefits engagement requires an employee-centred approach.
By making benefits relevant, accessible, personalised, engaging and well-timed, employees have the best chance to fully understand the benefits available.
Ultimately, the more effort put into benefits engagement, the greater the return in terms of employee well-being and loyalty.
In turn, this will lead to a happier workforce and greater productivity.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Barnett Waddingham
Everything we stand for at Barnett Waddingham is embedded in our promise – to do the right thing. We’ve applied this meaningful principle across all aspects of our business with continued success.
