In this era of pay cuts, pay freezes and short-time working many employers are looking carefully at their benefits package to assess the impact on motivation and morale. We recommend that top-performers are incentivised even when there is little money in the pot, and in some cases this will need adjustments making to the benefits on offer:

1. DON’T KEEP A BENEFITS PORTFOLIO THAT IS NO LONGER FIT FOR PURPOSE
   Investing time to review your benefits is a key first step in the communication process: it's no good investing in or communicating benefits that are out-of-date and not relevant to your workforce. Ask yourself if or how current benefits add value - do you know which rewards are most valued by employees?

 

2. DO POSITION BENEFITS AGAINST THE ORGANISATION’S STRATEGY
   Consider aligning your ongoing goals and objectives with a deep-rooted review of your benefits offering. Do you want to attract or retain particular groups of employees? Or do you want to encourage a greater emphasis on homeworking and remote working throughout the business? Do your competitors offer benefits that would enable you to do this?

 

3. DON’T MISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE A MESSAGE ABOUT YOUR BENEFITS
   Once you are confident your benefits portfolio matches the needs of your employees, you need to clarify what you want to say about them and to whom. It’s not possible to take off-the-shelf communications programmes and apply them directly to your business; every organisation has different employee structures, needs and opinions. For employees to make informed choices about the benefits that suit them best, they need to be aware of the choices that are available. Therefore, communications need to be focused on both the benefits that are on offer as well as their value (financial and non-financial) to employees and, if applicable, their dependants.

 

4. DO ENCOURAGE YOUR EXISTING PROVIDERS TO SHOULDER SOME OF THE WORKLOAD
   Often third party benefits providers will support your benefits communications programme. They may be able to offer marketing and communications material to use alongside your corporate information. They may also be willing to develop material that is tailored for your business. After all, it is in their interest that employees have the necessary information to support any purchasing decisions.

 

5. DON’T IGNORE LINE MANAGERS
   Line managers have a unique role in communicating benefits: the direct relationship they have with employees (compared with the more removed relationship they have with HR or senior managers) gives them the opportunity to speak more openly and build on already established relationships.
   
   However, you should recognise that line managers have other pressing priorities and their buy-in and interest must be sought when it comes to involving them in the benefits communication process. Employee engagement and loyalty are important to their success too and the opportunity offered by employee benefits to share positive information should not be underestimated.

 

6. DO ENLIST THE SUPPORT OF OTHERS
   The potential to communicate employee benefits through other stakeholder groups, including trade unions and employee committees, should also be considered as they have a key role to play in the development and delivery of your communications strategy.

 

7. DON’T COMMUNICATE IN A ONE SIZE FITS ALL STYLE
   Presentations at induction meetings for new starters, leaflets, booklets and brochures, internet or intranet content, face-to-face presentations and workshops, individual sessions, text messages, blogs, notice boards, email alerts, company newsletters or magazines, total reward statements and material distributed at annual general meetings are just some of the options available.

 

8. DO EXPERIMENT
   In selecting communication channels you should be open to considering and experimenting with a range of communication methods to find the solution that works best for your people, organisation and the particular benefits being offered. Approaching communication in this way ensures a greater number of employees are reached and engaged and that they have access to relevant and up-to-date information.

 

9. DON’T PUT YOUR FEET ON THE DESK AFTER THE INITIAL PHASE
   Regular communication with employees is essential; without it employees will be unaware of the range of benefits on offer. By communicating proactively with people about benefits, you can ensure employees access up-to-date and relevant information. In addition you can begin to build employee engagement and trust, which in turn can impact on retention, motivation and productivity.
   Consideration should also be given to aligning ongoing communications to more general issues and objectives being tackled by the organisation. For example, promoting benefits to support work-life balance, health & wellbeing, volunteering or green/sustainability issues can support your organisation’s broader agenda in this area.

 

10. DO STEP BACK AND THINK AGAIN ABOUT YOUR BENEFITS
    Taking time to review your offering – and asking others for their opinion – is a key step in the process of offering the ‘right’ benefits and communicating them in the ‘right’ way. This opportunity to refresh key messages about available benefits will ensure they remain targeted and applicable to your changing workforce and their evolving needs.

As well as utilising employee feedback, consider other evaluation measures, such as the take-up rates of individual products, the number of calls to product helplines and the specific problems or issues employees have encountered, to help you refresh your communications strategy.