Benefits often don’t get the attention they deserve. Companies spend a considerable sum on their benefits programmes yet very rarely promote them internally, outside of a brief description in a new hire pack or a little visited section of the HR intranet page. And if employees don’t know about them, or aren’t thinking about them, then they aren’t valuing them.
To get to grips with your benefits package and ensure your company is feeling the benefit of your benefits you need to ask 5 key questions:
- What have you currently got in place?
- Who are your employees?
- What is valued by your employees?
- How does it compare to market?
- How are you communicating this to your employees?
1. So, what have you currently got in place?
First of all you need to make sure you have a full list of what you have in place. This sounds straightforward but often in larger or multi-site organisations you find a variety of practice or legacy arrangements, and you need to make sure you know your full proposition. It may be you have something in one area that you may want to bring in across the company.
So, dig into the corners and ask around the various HR and payroll teams to find out what is in place. Don’t forget to include those little perks; for example, free tea or coffee. Think of anything your company does which helps make life a little more pleasant for your people.
2. Who are your employees?
Who are the people who work for you and are there distinct groups of employees? Segmentation of employees gives you that insight and allows you to consider who you’re targeting with your benefits.
One of our clients works in an industry with an ageing workforce and they found they had two distinct groups of employees; the older, highly qualified, settled workforce which makes up most of their employees, but also the young, developing experience, primarily single group of employees. Although the latter group are the minority, the client needs to focus on their happiness to ensure the pipeline of engineers doesn’t run dry in a few years.
By recognising the different groups within their company, the client ensured a mix of benefits so the younger group (who they desperately needed to retain and bring through the business) had something of value from the benefit package.
Next time, we'll look at 3 more key questions, including quantifying the value of a particular benefit to your employees, how to benchmark your offering against competitors, and finally how to maximise ROI with effective communications.
If you’re concerned that your benefits offer lacks appeal, Innecto can help. We curate benefits offers by garnering detailed opinions among employees, running focus groups, and analysing the results. We also organize the tender process and recommend best-fit providers for your needs. Email mark.macoun@innecto.com or call us on 020 3457 0894 to get started.
