The organisation took five prizes in total: ‘Best healthcare and wellbeing benefits – large employer’; ‘Best flexible benefits plan – large employer’; ‘Best alignment of benefits to business strategy’; ‘Best benefits communications – large employer’; and Grand Prix.
The judges selected the banking firm as the Grand Prix winner because of the scale of its achievements over the past year.
BNP Paribas’ benefits team faced a daunting task. In order to achieve the organisation’s business aim of being ‘one bank’, it was necessary to replace seven different benefits schemes in seven different businesses, each with its own workforce profile and culture, with a single benefits package.
If this was not complex enough, BNP Paribas’ benefits team was also tasked with making more benefits available to more employees, while reducing benefits costs by £690,000 a year across the group by 2016.
The judges were impressed both with how BNP Paribas approached the project and the results achieved. This includes savings in the region of £4m from collectively negotiating and consolidating insurance and supplier arrangements, and savings on rollover costs. In 2015, national insurance savings of £3.4m a year will be realised, far exceeding the £690,000-a-year target ahead of schedule.
In addition, Ant Donaldson, global product expert, benefits at E.On, was named 2015’s ‘Employee Benefits Professional of the Year’. During his career, Donaldson has racked up a number of industry accolades, including several Employee Benefits Awards.
Donaldson was nominated for the award by industry peers because, despite his list of achievements, he does not rest on his laurels. Each year, he drives his team to find new ways to improve, innovate and push benefits forward at E.On.
The Employee Benefits Awards 2015 took place on 12 June at the Artillery Garden at the HAC in London.
