For employers wanting to engage staff in their benefit scheme it needs to be simple, have good communication and be fun.
Speaking during a session at Employee Benefits Live on 25 September, several winners of the 2013 Employee Benefits Awards, gave their top tips on making a successful benefits strategy.
Debra Corey, former group compensation and benefits director of Merlin Entertainments (pictured), said motivation was the key to a good benefits scheme with her acronym ‘aim’ (appropriate audience; invest in time and energy; meaningful recognition) being its key to getting employers motivated in its benefit scheme.
But despite facing a challenge to get its parent company Wal-Mart to agree roll out its own paperless enrolment process, Asda stores reward manager, Mike Hazelgrove agreed with other panellists that communication is key.
Hazelgrove said: “Since we moved all of our enrolment to a simple text message, we have seen take up increase.
“We had to convince Wal-Mart that all our plans worked and that’s no mean task. I have to go to a board meeting every January to convince the chief executives, who then have to get Walmart on board. Good communication is essential.”
Drawing a close to the last session of day one at Employee Benefits Live, Debi Povey, head of reward at bwin.party, added: “Making schemes fun helps get employees involved in the process of setting up you benefit schemes.
“Our wost mistake was our best technique, members of staff got more involved once we put viral a video of an employee demanding what they wanted in a benefits package. It really does help boost engagement.”
