A great financial benefits and rewards programme can help you attract the very best talent, retain valuable members of the team, and boost productivity and financial wellbeing.
Many businesses spend valuable time, money and other resources putting together complicated schemes for their employees. But do you know how successful they are, i.e., what the engagement and participation figures actually are?
Do the numbers
Do you know the percentage of your workforce who have currently opted in to your financial rewards and benefits schemes? Chances are it’s falling below your expectations and there might be several reasons for this.
- Look at the numbers. You may not have access to all the data but check with any third-party providers as well to get a clear picture of the take up. Remember to look at how frequently employees are engaging with providers and the usage of any financial services and then carefully analyse the resulting data.
- Work out what benefits are claimed and those that aren’t. Could you perhaps produce a rewards statement, which shows the total value of each employee’s pay and reward package including both the benefits they claim and those they don’t.
- Revisit accessibility and positioning. Look at where and how you are promoting the programme, could you extend it to more obvious places where employees will see it and be able to act on it more readily. Emailing people or having the information on an intranet are not necessarily the right ways to flag up these types of important schemes.
- Review wording. Sometimes the schemes are not easy to understand or incentivised to encourage employees to participate. Check the wording/messaging, suitability of language and whether the benefits are clearly articulated/demonstrated.
- Ask your employees for their views. It may sound simple but often the best way to find out whether the financial wellbeing benefits you are offering are the right ones is to ask them. Survey, focus groups or including questions during line manager reviews are all great ways to find out what your employees really think. The process might also yield some new ideas and insights that you had not previously thought about.
- External factors. If you are pushing pensions, savings and retirement benefits and you have a young workforce who are struggling to navigate the cost-of-living crisis, it may be time to revisit the benefits to ensure they are clear enough. Be open to answering questions or perhaps run a series of info sessions to explain why financial wellbeing at any age is important.
- The lack of uptake may be due to timings. Ask yourself when are employees most likely to be engaged with all things financial? Pay day of course, so what about putting the relevant information on their pay slips or in a payslip portal which includes their rewards statement to highlight what’s available to them and of course include the benefits.
Improve financial reward uptake and engagement
As an employer, you have a duty of care to promote and provide ways to improve financial awareness and resilience across your workplace. Make sure you take the time to explain everything carefully and in a way that every employee can understand. In addition, remember to highlight the advantages of opting into your company pension fund, mentioning why a reduction in net pay for the purpose of providing for the future is becoming increasingly important, even for the younger members of the team.
A recent survey suggested that by making a few changes to your total reward statements delivery process, you can improve engagement across your workforce by up to 40%.
email caroline.robertson@actifhr.co.uk for assistance