More than four in 10 employers admit their staff are not fully aware of the benefits they offer or do not completely understand them, according to research.
Protection industry body Group Risk Development (Grid) spoke to 505 HR decision makers and found that 31% believed their staff did not understand all benefits available to them. A further 10% said employees were only aware of some benefits while 3% stated their workers knew about none of the perks on offer.
Meanwhile Grid also surveyed 1,216 members of staff at UK businesses about employee benefits, and found that only 40% think their employer is effective in communicating what's on offer, while 26% said their employer is not.
More than one-third (37%) of employers used email to communicate their employee benefits, with a similar proportion (36%) using staff welcome packs. Noticeboards, handbooks and intranet were also popular methods.
Two-fifths of HR decision makers (41%) said they do not measure whether their employees appreciate the staff benefits that they offer. Of those who do look at this, fewer than half (48%) believe their workers "very much appreciate" what is available to them.
Meanwhile, the most popular methods used to garner levels of appreciation among workers are a formal staff survey and informal feedback to managers, HR and employee benefits teams or wellbeing champions, with both methods used by 35% of employers.
Katharine Moxham, spokesperson for Grid, commented that time, resources and financial investment are spent in getting the right benefits in place for staff, but these have to be communicated effectively for full value to be realised.
She said this communication effort benefits not only the individual employee but the business.
“We know that many organisations have had to double down on their efforts to provide relevant employee benefits in this new era of hybrid working, but all of these endeavours are not as effective as they could be if staff don’t know what is available or have insufficient understanding to appreciate them,” Moxham said.
