Mills and Reeve relaunches flex communications

EXCLUSIVE: Mills and Reeve has re-launched its flexible benefits communications strategy to incorporate a range of new methods.

The communications began in September with a general teaser campaign, which provided details of the scheme’s enrolment dates and the benefits available.

The law firm followed this with specific emails about each benefit on offer. Samantha Neaves, reward and HR information systems manager at Mills and Reeve, said: “One day it might be dental insurance, then private medical insurance, then the health cash plan, and so on, repeating these just in case some employees missed some.”

During the enrolment period, from 1 to 19 October, there was a countdown on the firm’s intranet site, which also showed the number of employees who logged into the scheme each week to gain the attention of other staff.

After the enrolment period closed, the law firm posted an announcement to tell everyone which benefits had been taken up and by how many people. Almost 50% of staff made a change to their benefits this year.

Mills and Reeve saw a rise in the number of employees increasing their life assurance benefits, as well as in the number of employees using a salary sacrifice arrangement for their pension scheme. Its pension schemes, a group stakeholder and a group personal pension (GPP) plan, have more than 95% membership, with more than 60% using the salary sacrifice arrangement.

The flexible benefits scheme, which was introduced in April 2007, is provided by Thomsons Online Benefits.