Professional services firm JLL is moving away from paper-based means of communicating its share schemes to online methods to better reflect the ways its employees carry out the majority of their work and personal transactions.
With 4,000 employees across four divisions, JLL currently has 1,000 members saving into a three-year sharesave scheme and 130 saving into a five-year scheme.
Sarah Ruggles, head of pensions and benefits at JLL, says: “The vast majority of our employees are online, so we know we can effectively communicate via email. They’re all fairly sophisticated and predominantly professionals, so are very accustomed to transacting over the internet.”
The move is also part of the organisation’s sustainability aim to improve its carbon footprint and not rely on paper copy.
When a sharesave scheme matured in 2015, JLL moved the maturity process online and launched an interactive online guidance brochure and webinars, which included all the information employees needed to know about the maturity process. Previously, JLL offered face-to-face sessions at its locations around the country.
JLL has since continued to use online communication methods. Ruggles says: “This year we put our launch process entirely online, with an online brochure and online capability to go straight on to [provider] YBS’s website and apply for the options and savings account.”
Its sharesave communications are not entirely online, but the information sent out has been streamlined; employees receive a letter containing log-in details to their home address along with one page of regulatory information. Previously, this would have been accompanied by a booklet and prospectus.
JLL also sends out information about the share schemes on its weekly newsletters, as well as emails. Employees are signposted to the information online and can also dial in to webinars.
“We have significant take-up, so the information webinars on launch are aimed at new people, although we are seeing existing savers joining, just to update their knowledge,” says Ruggles.
The key message that JLL wants to communicate to employees is that the sharesave schemes offer them a stake in the business. “It’s about taking a stake in the [organisation] and being involved in the business, and we feel that that engages people more in what they’re doing,” says Ruggles.
