If you offer employee benefits and think your staff should use them more, the problem may not lie with the staff or the benefits. 

It could be down to you. 

Well, not you specifically, but the way you’re communicating. 

And that’s something you can easily fix.

 

Recent research by Enjoy Benefits Director, Vic Johnston, revealed that there are real savings made by UK businesses that offer employee benefit schemes.

 

Benefits schemes save money

 

Vic looked at data from nearly 2,000 UK businesses – the majority of them SMEs with fewer than 250 employees – and the finding in the data was clear. 

 

For every £1 spent on employee benefits, on average each business in the study made a saving of £3.12 in tax and National Insurance.

 

With such an iron-clad financial case for offering employee benefits, it pays to make the most of your scheme. 

 

Employees typically use more than one benefit in successful schemes. So getting employees started on the scheme will lead to them finding more benefits they can use and enjoy.

 

 

Let’s talk staff benefits

 

Good communication is closely tied to a successful benefits scheme.

 

Vic Johnston’s research revealed that 75% of employers do not communicate their benefits frequently to their staff. 

 

Nearly half said they do it only infrequently – on an annual basis – and 14% said they never communicate about the benefits on offer at all (see graph below).

 

communicatingbenefits

 

Other analysis of employee benefits has considered communication carefully.

 

 One study, by the employee benefits software company Benify in 2020, highlighted that “communication efforts are required to create awareness and perception of benefits”.

 

An internal study by the company RS Components paid careful attention to internal communications of benefits. 

 

It found that communicating quickly and more effectively about their benefits to their staff had broken new ground for the company. 

 

Their effective benefits package had become a significant factor in employees choosing to work for them.

 

 

Why communication counts

 

So, communication has been established as a useful and welcome mechanism for improving uptake of benefits, and employees’ perception of them. 

 

Given that savings for employers increase with uptake, the frequency and quality of communications about employee benefits should be a major aim for any employer.

 

Data analysis in Vic Johnston’s study demonstrates that the more frequently a user engages with a benefits platform, the more a company saves. So companies will make a financial benefit from encouraging their employees to engage with their benefits more.

 

 

Your good comms checklist

 

The key to good staff communication is to do it regularly and use many channels. How will you know if you’re communicating well and effectively with your staff about the benefits package available to them? Here are a few things to check.

 

  • Is all the information about their staff benefits available via a website or pack?
  • Are staff told about the full package of benefits when they join the company? 
  • Is the benefits package highlighted during recruitment?
  • Are managers aware of all the benefits? Can they advise staff on them?
  • If you have performance reward schemes, do all your managers use them?
  • Do you mention benefits regularly in staff newsletters or in meetings?
  • Do you send out reminders about the employee benefits scheme regularly?

 

There are so many ways to communicate with staff effectively. In addition to all the ways above, you can guide staff towards benefit at relevant times of their lives. 

 

 

When do benefits matter most?

 

Different things matter to people at different times of their lives. So it is best to keep reminding people of the different ways that employee benefits can help. Pointing staff towards nursery places when they become new parents will feel very relevant. Or reminding them about the company’s EAP scheme when they’re facing challenging times in their lives

 

There is also value in communicating seasonally. Could your staff make use of the discount club savings at Christmas? What about discounted gym memberships in January? And why not send out an email about the cycle to work schemes in spring, when people typically get on their bikes after the long winter.

 

You could also ask staff what they think about benefits in one-to-ones or staff surveys, in order to tweak the offering available, and also to find out whether people are getting value from them and what difference it’s making to their lives.

 

Communicating about your benefits scheme effectively to staff will reap many rewards. And it’s a virtuous circle. The more benefits your staff use and enjoy, the more money your business will save.

 

If you’ve found this article interesting, you can read more about Vic Johnston’s research into What Motivates UK Employers to Provide Employee Benefits on this blog.

 

 

About Us

At Enjoy Benefits, we have great experience in helping companies of all sizes introduce benefits that are suitable for their workplace.

 

Benefits are easy to set up and ongoing administration is then run through a hub, this allowing employees to manage their own benefits while the employer can see which benefits are proving popular and what level of take-up each has had.

 

If you would like an obligation free chat to discuss which benefits might work for your business and your employees, please contact us by calling 0800 088 7315 or using our Contact Form.