Five tips to evaluate the success of your benefits communication strategy

When trying to get your message across, question your approach and its impact on the results you are trying to drive first.

What’s the fastest way to waste all of your investment in your benefits programme?

Fail to communicate it to your employees, surely?

And yet, benefits communication is consistently ranked by reward professionals as the weakest aspect of their programmes.

According to our Benefits Design Research 2024 conducted in partnership with REBA, over a third (36%) of respondents believe their benefits communications require urgent attention.

Consequently, more than half of employers plan to undertake large-scale projects to improve their benefits communications in the next 12 to 18 months.

This isn’t the first time our research with REBA has seen respondents recognise their challenges. Nor is it the first time they have said that communications sits at the top of the action list.

This begs the question, why does good communications get neglected or feel so hard to achieve?

Here are five tips to evaluate and improve your benefits communication strategy:

1. Keep it simple

There is no need to create a complex strategic approach; often it’s just about getting the message out there. For example, pensions need to be regularly communicated to all employees and there is a general pension savings gap among the UK workforce.

Many future retirees are finding it challenging to increase their savings. Only 42% feel they have the financial flexibility, beyond daily expenses, to set aside money for retirement. This contrasts sharply with 84% of current retirees, who are enjoying their retirement, especially those in good health and with minimal financial concerns - Scottish Widows Retirement Report 2024.

So, pushing out clear messaging and “calls to action” on the need to save for a good standard of living in retirement and how to change their contributions will more than suffice.

2. Consider the objectives

Start with having a joined-up plan, with clear objectives for your benefits strategy in terms of impact on appreciation, wellbeing, and productivity. Then, measure these outcomes however you can, in surveys and (for example, claims) data, so that you can baseline where you are at and identify your priorities for improvement. Then prioritise your communications around these goals.

3. Utilise technology

Make use of technology to track communications. There are lots of tools to measure readership and engagement, such as click-through rates, which can provide valuable insights into how well communications are received.

If you don’t have a benefits platform, consider using your marketing systems, which will track communications, plus there are an array of social media analytics tools. This data can help you understand the cause and effect of your efforts, so you can make adjustments based on real-time insights into what’s working and what’s not.

4. Ask employees how they prefer to be communicated with

We can all look out for the latest innovation, but new ways to communicate may not be favoured by everyone. Organisations shouldn’t assume how their people prefer to receive content; they should ask employees their preference.

Trusting and acting on this feedbackensures communications are delivered in the most receptive way. Tracking the effectiveness of different channels will show if these preferences lead to better engagement and use of benefits.

5. Look at the demographics of the workforce

Employers can significantly enhance engagement by tailoring messages to different segments of the workforce. You can consider factors such as age, seniority, gender, and family situation when crafting communications, but also consider their current engagement with benefits – differences in pension funding and benefits membership can drive different calls to action.

As well as delivering different messages, you can also segment your workforce to try different media – longer format may suit some people more than short format, social, video content, for example.

To drive maximum value from investment in benefits, any reward team needs to build the right habits in communicating benefits to employees. A change in approach and mindset is often needed, especially if our research is anything to go by.

So, whatever your current approach and starting point, ask yourself the right set of questions about the approach you are taking and its impact on the results you are trying to drive. Then build from there. And if that seems daunting, that’s where we come in.

Collaborating with experts, such as Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing, who understands how to create impactful communication plans can drive better engagement.

This helps ensure that benefit spend aligns with corporate goals and isn’t wasted.

For more information visit the Howden Group.