Why employee experience is central to reward and benefits technology success

Even the cleverest systems can underperform if employees can’t find what they need, don’t understand what’s available, or don’t trust the platform enough to use it.

Reward and benefits technology has evolved rapidly. Platforms are more configurable, analytics more sophisticated, and integrations more ambitious. Yet many organisations still struggle to realise the outcomes they expected in terms of higher engagement, higher usage, improved perception of value, and measurable ROI.

Engagement is not a “nice to have” metric - it is the mechanism through which reward and benefits technology delivers real value.

Here’s what HR leaders can do to design for adoption, trust, and sustained engagement:

Engagement is the gateway to value

Reward and benefits platforms don’t create value simply by existing. They create value when employees use them — repeatedly, confidently, and at the moments that matter.

Low engagement has direct consequences:

Employees miss benefits they are eligible for, increasing perceived inequity and dissatisfaction
Preventative wellbeing and early intervention services go underused, leading to higher healthcare costs further down the line
HR teams spend more time answering basic questions and troubleshooting
Leadership questions the return on investment

In other words, engagement is not a communications challenge at launch – it’s an ongoing design and delivery requirement.

Experience determines trust, trust determines uptake

Benefits decisions are personal. They touch finances, family needs, health, and life events. When employees interact with reward technology, they are implicitly asking:

Is this relevant to me?
Is this easy to understand?
Is it safe?
Will this actually help?

If the experience is confusing, overly complex, or inconsistent, employees will disengage quickly.

Choice overload is real

Choice is powerful, but without thoughtful design it can become overwhelming.

When employees face too many options, unclear terminology, or long decision pathways, they often default to inaction.

Technology can unintentionally amplify this by presenting benefits in a catalogue format rather than guiding employees to the right choices. A strong employee experience reduces confusion through:

Plain language explanations
Personalised recommendations
Simple decision journeys
Smart defaults and prompts

The goal isn’t to reduce choice, it’s to make choice usable.

Engagement is built in micro-moments — not annual events

Many benefits strategies still anchor engagement to predictable moments, annual enrolment windows for instance, or annual wellbeing campaigns.

Employee experience, however, is shaped by smaller, more frequent touchpoints:

A new joiner trying to understand benefits in week one
An employee with a sudden change of circumstances (eg divorce) looking to maximise take-home pay
Someone experiencing or coming back to work after an illness or injury, looking for support options
Someone in need of mental health support to get through a difficult period (eg bereavement, debt or workplace stress)
An employee approaching retirement age looking to maximise relevant benefits – like pension contributions and healthcare

Successful reward and benefits technology supports employees in real time, in context, and across the employee lifecycle.

Communication alone won’t fix a poor experience

When engagement is low, the instinct is often to increase communications - more emails, more launch campaigns, more reminders. Communications matter, but they can’t compensate for bad user experiences.

If employees are being asked to click through multiple pages to find key information, log in repeatedly, or interpret complex benefit language, they will disengage. This is even more true for those who don’t work in an office at a computer – and might not have strong digital skills.

A really strong user experience reduces the need for heavy communications because the platform does the work to guide, prompt and clarify for even novice tech users.

Your most effective communication strategy is often a well-designed user journey.

Design for people not platforms

Reward and benefits strategies increasingly prioritise inclusivity: supporting different life stages, diverse families, accessibility needs, and varied financial realities.

Technology can help make this real but only if the experience is designed to include everyone.

That means considering:

Accessibility for employees with disabilities
Language and literacy differences
Digital confidence and device access
Cultural differences in how benefits are understood and used
Privacy concerns that affect willingness to engage

An inclusive employee experience is not an additional feature. It is the foundation for equitable benefit access.

What HR leaders can do: Building engagement into design:

Start with employee needs, not platform capabilities: Define the outcomes employees need: clarity, confidence, and speed — especially in high-stress moments.
Map journeys across the employee lifecycle: Design for real scenarios: onboarding, life events, wellbeing support, financial planning, absence, and return to work.
Simplify language and reduce confusion: Use plain English, fewer clicks, and clear “what’s in it for me” explanations.
Personalise where it matters: Segment by life stage, location, and role type.
Measure adoption as a leading indicator: Track sign-in rates, repeat usage, benefit uptake, and search patterns. Low engagement is an early warning sign, not an afterthought.
Treat the platform as a living product, not a one-time project: Iterate after launch. Improve based on feedback and analytics, not assumptions.
Lean on providers: HR teams don’t have to work in isolation. Lean on service providers to help you integrate their services, and communicate about them throughout your benefits cycle.

Case study: Provider support helps roll out new benefit for 5k+ frontline staff

When UK Power Networks were looking to boost health benefits for their wider workforce, Equipsme was introduced to them as a middle-ground between traditional PMI and cash plans.

But spreading the word to so many employees - many working in the field and completely new health insurance - was always going to be challenging.

UK Power Networks comms teams worked closely with Equipsme to tailor communications for different teams.

Steve Remnant, head of reward, HR services and employee relations explained: “Our rollout programme included a whole suite of communications activities, with Equipsme supporting us every step of the way.

“They delivered workshops, webinars and drop-in sessions, as well as a dedicated page on our intranet, UK Power Networks-branded microsite, posters, leaflets, emails and articles to help explain to employees how their new benefits work.

“So far Equipsme has been very well received. We’ve been particularly pleased with how many people have chosen to pay-in themselves to upgrade their cover or add family members.”

Gavin Shay, distribution director at Equipsme, explained: “We estimate around 90% of our members are completely new to health insurance, and that means our services can take a lot of explaining. Which is precisely why we designed them to be simple and easy to understand. But even with a simple proposition there is no one-size-fits-all comms or user-experience solution. What we do is work with organisations to understand their workforce, and their unique make-up, pressures, and challenges.

“With UK Power Networks, for instance, it was imperative we got out to different locations in person to support enrollment and engagement in the wider network, and we’ve been delighted with the take-up and member feedback.”