One of the key themes for me that has stayed at the top of my radar during the last few months is around being authentic, and whilst some of this relates to executive pay packages and their misalignment to the treatment of the wider workforce, there is also a strand of authenticity that we often overlook in the way that we communicate our employee value proposition.  If you are a listed company, you will undoubtedly have a shiny new annual report created by marketeers each year that highlights your company achievements and how well you treat your employees. Most companies publish this in great detail in annual reports, even if not required to, or will use their website or careers page to bring their culture and benefits on offer to life.

But when you think about how you then communicate your reward deal in detail to your employees, it is often pure gobbledygook if communicated at all. Surveys of employees will often highlight that they don’t know about or understand the myriad of benefits on offer. We’ve run countless focus groups asking employees about what they receive as part of their reward package and typically will encounter responses of ‘I didn’t know we got that!’. If you aren’t communicating your employee deal effectively, not only are you not getting best return on investment for your spend, but you aren’t leveraging the often many great benefits that make up your total reward deal to best advantage when it comes to attracting, motivating and retaining your staff.

In preparation for a recent client workshop, I found myself amazed that there were no coherent documents that described what the employees received – bearing in mind it was a substantially generous package, much of the impact was lost as many employees didn’t even know what was on offer. Some organisations are good at highlighting the deal at induction, but if you’ve been around for a few years and you aren’t reminded, how do you expect your employees to feel benevolent towards you as an employer for the great package that you provide them?

My experience is that as HR professionals we think that we are generally pretty good at communication but we often miss a real trick of using our marketing colleagues to help us promote the reward deal to our employees. We don’t really package it, bringing all documents together in a simple easy to read way or use technology to really brand the deal and make the proposition sing. Our organisations are great at showing us off externally but the same effort needs to be leveraged internally. If your employee handbook consists of a list of policies, I urge you to think again about what this says about who you are as an employer. If your reward offer is hidden away on your intranet, please consider using mobile technology such as our Amplify app, to bring your reward deal to life. If the only time you communicate the reward deal to your employees is at induction think creatively about how you can develop regular ongoing meaningful engagement around your offer. Otherwise you are wasting not only significant amounts of money on benefits that no-one knows about, but you are also compromising the employee lifetime value – if you want to retain your employees and generate the best return on investment, they need to feel truly engaged and feel that the external image you present is aligned internally and authentically through your proposition. 

If you would like to find out how Amplify can help elevate your internal communications, give us a call on +44 (0)20 3457 0894 or email me at justine.woolf@innecto.com

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