More than a third of employees have taken up flexible benefits at building firm Rok after its scheme went live at the beginning of April.
Of the 3,300 employees eligible for flex around 1,300 have taken up the benefits, and although calculations are not yet complete, holiday trading is the most popular benefit to date, attracting between 400 and 500 employees. The other key benefits offered through flex are dental cover, critical illness cover, health cash plan and health screening.
The concept and system of flex was introduced to employees in January through total reward statements provided by Thomsons Online Benefits. A DVD was launched in March to communicate and explain the options available through flex before the scheme went live in April.††
Richard Sadler, head of reward at Rok, said: “There were quite a lot of misconceptions about the detail of benefits which stopped people from taking them up, so we’ve made a lot of effort to make sure to put the key messages across without trying to bombard people with information.
“More than anything we wanted people to chose [what] they wanted to and we wanted people to get engaged and excited by it.”
Rok provides employees with a DC stakeholder pension scheme with two levels of contribution, the first where the employee contributes 3% and the employer contributes 5%. The second level entails employees contributing 5% and the employer 7%.††
Free private medical insurance is provided to all employees, and extra family or partner cover can be bought through flex. Employees also receive life assurance cover, amounting up to four times basic salary for those in the pension scheme, and one times basic salary for those who are not. Voluntary benefits that can be selected through flex include childcare vouchers and payroll charitable giving.