Why benefits communication should start with the employee

Reward leaders think in terms of what benefits are on offer. Employees want to know how they affect their day-to-day lives. Smart communications can bridge that gap.

Employees don't experience benefits as a package of schemes. They experience them as solutions to real-life needs. So why are employers still communicating them like a catalogue?

The challenge is not simply having the right benefits in place, but how well they are communicated. REBA’s Benefits Design Research (2024) found that 36% of employers believe their benefits communications require urgent attention, while 56% had a large-scale project planned to improve them.

Your people don't necessarily need to know more about their benefits, but they do need to understand when and why they’re useful to them.

Too often, benefits communications start with the scheme: what it is, how it works and where to find it. But employees are more likely to recognise the value when communication starts with the problem it could help them solve.

That means thinking less about how HR categorises benefits and more about how employees experience them in everyday life.

HR thinks in benefits. Employees think in lives

Reward teams naturally organise benefits into areas such as pensions, wellbeing, salary sacrifice, recognition, leave and protection. That makes sense internally, but it is not necessarily how employees experience them.

Good communication closes that gap by starting with the need rather than the scheme.

For example:

Instead of: “Remember, you have access to our employee assistance programme.” Try: “Finding things difficult at the moment? Here are some places you can get confidential support.”
Instead of: “Our Cycle to Work scheme is now open.” Try: “Looking for ways to reduce the cost of your commute?”
Instead of: “Don’t forget about our holiday trading scheme.” Try: “Would a few extra days off make life easier this year?”
Instead of: “Explore our financial wellbeing benefits.” Try: “Could your money go a little further this month?”

The benefit hasn't changed, but the framing has. You are leading with something the employee may recognise in their own life, rather than expecting them to translate HR language into personal relevance.

Explain what the benefit actually enables

The same principle applies once you have someone’s attention. Good communication should not stop at explaining what a scheme is; it should help employees understand what it could enable them to do.

A pension is more than a percentage contribution. It is part of building financial security for later life. An employee assistance programme is more than a helpline; it can provide confidential support at a difficult time. Holiday purchase is not simply another flexible benefit; for some employees, it means more control over how work fits around life.

That does not mean stripping out important detail. It means making the practical value clear before asking employees to absorb policy language.

Even the best-framed message achieves little if an employee struggles to find the benefit, understand their options or access it on the device they use.

This matters particularly for workforces that are not sitting at a desk. Building materials manufacturer Knauf uses FlexGenius, the employee benefits platform from Ciphr Benefits, to give employees a central place to access and understand their benefits.

Rachel Chester, reward and benefits manager at Knauf, says: “The fully branded, intuitive platform made it easy for our diverse workforce to access and understand their options, even for plant-based employees using personal devices.”

Give people reasons to rediscover what is already there

A benefit someone ignores today may become highly relevant six months from now because their circumstances or priorities have changed.

That is why benefits communications cannot rely on onboarding or launch announcements alone. Employees need reasons to rediscover what is already available.

Technology can help make some communications more timely. As we explored in our recent article about data triggers, an employee action can sometimes provide a useful prompt to offer information or support, provided employers avoid making assumptions about why that action has taken place.

Make the value easier to see

The most effective communications start with the employee, not the benefit. That means thinking about what is happening in someone’s life first, then showing how the support you already offer could help.

Communicate like a person, not a policy. Connect a real need with something useful and make it easy for employees to act on it.

So, don't ask “How do we communicate this benefit?” Ask “What is happening in our employees’ lives that makes this benefit relevant and when is the right moment to show it to them?”