Redesigning its income protection scheme helped SG CIB to cut costs by approximately £150,000.
Previously, the financial services firm did not communicate the scheme, because rising costs meant that it did not want employees to know about or use it.
Speaking in a session entitled 'Effective and efficient benefits communication', Robert Potter, head of HR at the French firm, said that employees were failing to try to overcome illness and relying on their benefits instead of returning to work, which increased the costs of the scheme.
He added that not sufficiently communicating the plan almost defeated the point of having the benefit. "If we were going to spend that much money, we wanted employees to know about it."
The financial firm now communicates its scheme on an on-going basis. Quarterly communications are sent to each employee's home address in order to engage with their families by reinforcing the organisation's interest in employee wellbeing.
Since the scheme's redesign, SG CIB has also been able to increase the number of healthcare benefits on offer at no extra cost. These include stress counselling and a 24-hour GP helpline. He said: "We have been able to increase the value of the organisation's proposition and substantially reduce costs."