Need to know:
- There are many awareness days that can be used as a framework for benefits strategy. Rather than choosing dates to focus on, though, employers should determine the important values for the business first.
- April 2020 will see key legislative changes that employers should also consider and prepare for.
- Some dates can be used to promote relevant benefits, while others can be a springboard to discuss otherwise difficult topics, such as mental health.
As 2019 draws to a close, many employers will be looking ahead to the new year and considering how their benefits strategy will pan out. While mapping out a holistic, year-long approach to the employee experience might sound daunting, one helpful method to focus strategic efforts is to structure them around key dates already in the diary.
For example, there are many awareness days, both national and international, that employers can use as a focal point.
Planning a benefits strategy around key awareness days has its advantages, but employers need to consider what they want to achieve, says Chris Bailey, partner and head of corporate at Mercer Marsh Benefits. “I’m a big fan of this type of approach because it allows [employers] to bring that full employee value proposition [EVP] into the fabric of people’s working lives," he explains. "The start point really is to look at the key areas and the key messages; don't start with the days and try and retro fit.”
Once an employer has decided on its focus points for the year, standing behind a national or international campaign can provide a significant boost, says Simon Ball, head of international risk and healthcare at Fidelity Benefits Consulting: “One of the big issues for employers is not around salaries or around benefits, it’s around engagement. [Supporting] these issues, the [employer] is showing that it cares about the longevity of employees rather than acute incidences, and it does tend to lead to better engagement.”
The following is a selection of just some of the many awareness days and key dates that employers might want to consider for their 2020 benefits strategy.
January to June
20 January: Blue Monday
6 February: Time to Talk Day
8 March: International Women’s Day
April: Stress Awareness Month
6 April: Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Act 2018 comes into force
6 April: Good Work Plan changes come into effect
May: National Smile Month
18-24 May: Mental Health Awareness Week
1-7 June: Volunteers' Week
Political uncertainty and increasing pressures on both personal and working lives means that financial and mental wellbeing will continue to be significant themes in 2020. In the first half of the year, there are many events that offer opportunities for employers to highlight the mental health support on offer.
Blue Monday on 20 January, or the third Monday of the month, is cited as the ‘most depressing day of the year’ due to a combination of factors, including post-Christmas bills being due, continued cold weather and long dark nights. This might be a time for employers to focus efforts on uplifting employees' moods, both in the short and long term.
Time to Talk Day, a campaign led by charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, encourages open conversations about mental health. As with many campaigns, there are information packs and resources available for employers.
“A lot of the charities associated with these areas have a lot of material and want employers to use them and engage,” says Bailey. “It really does help; it’s a very efficient way of linking [an employer’s] internal marketing with external marketing to bring it to life.”
Beyond mental health, dates such as International Women's Day (8 March 2020) can be used to open discussion around key topics in the workplace, and assess and publicise an organisation's progress in terms of diversity and inclusion.
Other key dates, such as National Smile Month or Volunteers' Week, meanwhile, might be used to contextualise and promote existing benefits, like dental plans or volunteering leave.
There are also some dates, outside of awareness campaigns, that employers themselves should be aware of, that will doubtless have an impact on 2020 people strategy. The end of the tax year in April marks changes to working practices and employment law, following the government’s publication of its Good Work Plan in December 2018.
Coming into effect in April 2020 is the removal of Swedish Derogation loophole that allows employers to pay agency workers less than permanent employees, as well as the extension of the reference period for determining an average week’s pay, from 12 weeks to 52 weeks. The entitlement to receive written particulars of employment is to be extended to workers as well as employees, and will become a ‘day one’ right.
The Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Act is also due to come into force in April 2020. This will give all employed parents the right to two weeks of leave if they lose a child under the age of 18, or suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy. If employees have 26 weeks of continuous pay, they will be entitled to paid leave at the statutory rate, while other employees will be entitled to unpaid leave.
August to December
8 August: Cycle to Work Day
15 September: Pensions Awareness Day
28 September: National Inclusion Week
10 October: World Mental Health Day
12 October: National Work-`.Life Week
4 November: National Stress Awareness Day
19 November: International Men’s Day
1 December: Worlds Aids day
The beginning of August brings a focus not only on employee health, but also the employer’s corporate and social responsibility (CSR) agenda, with Cycle to Work Day, led by Cyclescheme. Employers can use the event to promote their bikes-for-work scheme and highlight the benefits that cycling can bring, both to wellbeing and fitness, and in terms of environmental impacts.
Pensions Awareness Day on 15 September is part of a campaign from Pensions Geek that aims to drive engagement with retirement savings. Many employers now run pensions-focused weeks throughout the year; some use the Pensions Awareness Day as a launch pad, while others will plan it around key dates that suit their business, such as the annual enrolment window for benefits selection.
Karen Bolan, head of engagement at AHC, says: “We often advocate having a pensions week, something around the business which is very visible. With pensions, it’s not top of mind for everybody, so anything you can do as an employer to make it front of mind works really well, and if you can focus it around a few days or over a week, then it gives people the opportunity to think a bit more about.”
A pensions week can include anything from lunch-and-learn sessions to drop-ins with a pensions manager, or even games and activities to encourage employees to engage more with the concept of retirement and saving for later life.
“[Employers] can add a bit of fun around it and get people playing games, or reward people for using the tools that already exist on [their] website,” says Bolan. “If they can think about driving people to existing tools, maybe a modeller, [they] can increase the usage just by making it a bit more visible.”
Moving from specific benefits to high-level strategy, National Inclusion Week will also take place in September 2020. This is a campaign from Inclusive Employers, aiming to raise awareness of the importance of inclusion. In 2019, many employers ran activities and events around this time, and as the scrutiny on organisations to address issues and promote inclusion is only going to increase, this should be a key agenda item going in to 2020.
Raising awareness can help bring core organisational values to life, whether these are big topics like inclusion or part of an everyday approach to employee health and wellness, explains Bailey.
“There are a lot of relevant days that will impact on people, and things they should really know about,” he concludes. “The value of that is that [employers] can tap into what is effectively free publicity, because these [campaigns] are highly publicised in the media. It gives [employers] more power to [add to] any internal marketing [they] can do. It also provides external validation, which is really important.”
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