Member Article

The gifts that keep on giving: 5 ways to make sure your benefits package stays front of mind of your employees

An effective benefits package does not only depend on the number of options that you offer - awareness among your employees is key to making them as effective as possible

Employee benefits packages are growing in importance as they are increasingly being used as a key ‘pull factor’ for the top talent in the industry. Yet, what is easily forgotten is that a mere tick box list of everything that is on offer can seriously hinder the effectiveness of benefits because employees need to be constantly reminded of the opportunities their employers are unlocking for them.

How do you go about reminding your colleagues in a way that is engaging and non-repetitive? Here are five tips to make your benefits work for you throughout the year:

Town Hall meetings to present benefits to your team

Town hall-style meetings can help you present new benefits and how to access them in a tangible way, especially if you are introducing new benefits. Imagine, for example, that you are launching a new ‘cycle-to-work’ scheme. Instead of sending out a mass email on the scheme, you could organise a meeting to tell employees how they can sign up, provide tips on what to look out for when buying a new bike for the daily commute and even test one or two out.

A Q&A is particularly useful for employees unsure of what these benefits actually mean for them. It also helps you to be aware of any hesitation or uncertainty from your colleagues that you need to address right from the get-go.

Keep track of sign-up and usage to monitor what is front of mind and what is not

An easy and effective way to see how your benefits are performing is by keeping track of the number of sign-ups for each benefit and the levels of usage performance over time. Most employees will join your benefits programmes right after they are introduced – and many of them might forget about them within a few weeks. Therefore, regularly monitoring the engagement you are getting from your workforce on a particular perk after implementation is a good way of finding out where to focus your efforts, and a well-placed, gentle nudge will help you prevent benefits from decreasing in effectiveness over time.

Case studies: ask employees if you can use and feature their experience as an example

Enriching your newsletters or posting updates on your intranet with case studies from your employees with examples of how they have done something special with your benefit is a great way of illustrating the specific opportunities your company provides.

An example of this would be an employee who has recently used their experience vouchers to go on a trip to an amusement park with the entire family. Similarly, you could use a testimonial from an employee stating how much money they have saved in the past year by using the company’s cycle-to-work scheme.

Seasonality: With the Christmas period behind us and January often being a bit tricky financially, try and tap into what your colleagues are concerned with most in their day-to-day

The Christmas period is behind us and the new year means sore heads - and sore finances all around. A recent study found that “the average Brit will have a Christmas hangover of £740 of debt and £323 on credit”. This brings up the question of what benefits would be helpful for employees throughout this period, when fancy purchases and big investments are bottom of their list? This is the right time to talk about perks that support your colleagues in their day-to-day lives, such as discount cards that can be used for grocery shopping, making money go that extra bit further in January.

Employee milestones: Don’t be afraid to mention what support you gave in your employees achieving important moments and goals in their lives

Consider spicing up the usual emails about colleagues becoming parents or going into retirement by informing employees of the support you have in place to help them achieve the bigger milestones in life. Each email of this nature should come with a corresponding checklist for your colleagues, which could for example be headlined: “Thinking about big life changes? – here is how we can help”. These emails would then include advice on the pension schemes on offer, or childcare schemes to support your colleagues.

While it is important to have a good benefits programme in place, in order for employees to take full advantage they need to be reminded of the benefits that are on offer. Using these tips should result in higher enrolment in benefits and lead to the outcome you want – a happy and engaged workforce.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Hawk Incentives .