Over the last 18 months, Adecco Group’s total reward strategy has needed to be relatively agile to address the needs of its employees during the cost-of-living crisis.
The group has three global business units, Adecco, Akkodis and LHH, which cover talent and recruitment, and digital and engineering solutions. It employs 39,000 employees across 60 countries and has around 3,000 members of staff in the UK and Ireland.
Some of the business units within the group operate their own reward framework, but its strategy for the majority of its UK and Ireland employees considers five pillars of total reward: compensation, benefits, performance and recognition, wellbeing, and employee development. It views work-life balance as an aspect within its physical, mental and financial wellbeing element.
The strategy roll-out started with the introduction of its benefits platform in 2021. This takes a holistic approach to cover four sections: mental health and meditation techniques through Mind, financial health and ways to save through Money, healthy eating and food planning through Munch, and physical health with access to free online exercise options through Move.
The platform hosts the group’s flexible benefits, recognition and wellbeing offerings, and has gradually been expanded to include all UK benefits along with links back to relevant areas of the organisation’s intranet, explains Tom Barker, reward manager UK and Ireland at Adecco Group.
“This ensures our employees have a one-stop-shop for all things reward,” he says. “Supplementing the platform are monthly articles in our HR newsletter, written by subject matter experts in our HR team to highlight benefits, policies, wellbeing initiatives and development opportunities in the business.”
The cost-of-living crisis drove the group to focus on how its existing benefits, employee discounts and flexible purchase schemes could be best utilised to help staff stretch their pay further. Its UK remuneration committee meets on a quarterly basis to discuss the performance of benefits and initiatives, and puts in place any further changes or enhancements to the strategy.
Awareness and utilisation are key considerations for Adecco Group, and its benefits platform provides the insight it needs to help understand future focus areas.
In terms of presenting and communicating its reward strategy to employees, the HR department takes over the group’s internal newsletter each month to highlight key areas of each pillar throughout the year. Since it began to do this in 2022, engagement has sky-rocketed to the point where more than 80% of employees now regularly access the platform.
“Additionally, it’s an excellent channel to highlight special events. For example, we recently ran an hour-long Pension Essentials webinar with our providers, and more than a third of our pension membership joined,” Barker concludes.