Written By: Andrew Mobberley | Last Updated: March 2023
Andrew has over 25 years of experience working within the employee benefits industry. He is primarily focused on our technology offering, but also helps with broader benefit consulting and employee communication solutions. He specialises in benefits, pensions and online solutions. He also heads up Sales for Broadstone and is part of the senior leadership team.
Importance of Being Creative When Communicating Employee Benefits
The job employers are facing to make their company communications ‘pop’ might seem a challenging task, but it’s worth remembering the power that great communication can still have.
Approximately 70% of employees commonly report ‘not’ being engaged [3], with lack of transparency (which impacts trust) being a key constituent for half of staff. When companies communicate well, they build a sense of alignment between their vision and values which transmits to staff a better understanding of goals (and employees’ place within that organisation).
Ensuring that employees receive creative communication about the employee benefits available to them is key to ensure that benefit engagement is as high as possible. Messaging that refers to and reinforces all the positive elements about working for an organisation (including salary and benefits, but also the culture and outlook it wants to cultivate) will further support the Employee Value Proposition (EVP).
Employee Value Proposition (or EVP)
This forms part of an employer’s branding, it’s how you would market to prospective employees and then keep hold of them when your market is competitive. An EVP is sort of like a promise you make to your staff in return for their service, the skills they will bring with them and their commitment to their role.
It is often made up of both monetary and non-monetary benefits.
The value of having highly engaged employees is now undisputed. For every 5-point increase in engagement there is a 3% increase in company revenue [1].
Creative Ways to Communicate Employee Benefits
Below are some employee benefit communication ideas that may work in implementing a new benefits strategy, or driving up employee engagement with their current benefits package:
Workshops and Webinars
Workshops and webinars show consideration for remote team members and will help them feel valued and included; particularly if live webinars are offered on which they can ask questions, engage with their employer, and know that they are just as important as staff members who physically attend such sessions.
Messaging
SMS messaging, text alerts, WhatsApp or similar – are a good option for communicating company benefits, particularly in a time when most of us carry our mobile phone at all times. Not only is it likely to reach most people effectively, but it will also allow you to reach those employees that may be on leave, working for you on a casual basis or even if they do not have a company email address.
One-to-One Meetings
Engaging with employees on a personal level is a way for a business to show caring, as well as helping to understand the needs of different demographics within their workforce. Communicating with people on a one-to-one basis allows them to better express what forms of communication works for them, and in turn makes your staff feel valued. If an employee knows you have taken the time to speak to them about their benefits, they are much more likely to go and have a look for themselves and engage with them, too.
Emails and Posters
Emails are a standard form of communication – but if it isn’t broken… Although they can get lost within a very busy inbox, adding a read receipt or a catchy subject telling people to open or read its contents, could help to limit the amount of people that disregard the importance of its content.
Posters are self-explanatory. If a business is mostly based on-site, creative, and eye-catching posters in well-used areas of a workplace such as the doors, kitchen area and meeting rooms, are sure to draw the eye of most employees and perhaps intrigue them into finding out more about the employee benefits being promoted. This works even better if it is as easy for them to access such as scanning a QR code.
Create a Strong Employee Benefits Platform
An employee benefits platform or portal can be a single, reliable source of truth for a workforce. It is important that benefits are communicated clearly, in one central place, through a simple platform.
Alongside this, your bespoke benefits package needs to be communicated with staff through a range of mediums that will cast a wider net of appeal, to encourage maximum employee engagement with the benefits available to them; making them more well utilised and understood. As an example: at Broadstone, we offer an employee benefits platform called Flexcel.
Creating a strong employee benefits platform can:
- Allow access to the true value of an employee benefits package through Total Rewards Statements (TRS)
- Ease of access to information about employee benefits, with the ability to select and change benefits on a mobile device
- Allow the employer to issue internal communications and even conduct benefits surveys
- Aid effective communication with all staff, allowing them to use one simple site to find any information about their employee benefits.
Find the Best Ways to Communicate Employee Benefits
74% of employees believe they are missing out on important company information. [2]
No matter what way employee benefits are communicated, it is important that they are accessible to all and as engaging as possible. Advertisers have been grappling with this for years, but now the problem of achieving cut-through is just as applicable for organisations and how they communicate messages to their staff.
HR & Reward Managers are increasingly aware of this. The problem they now need to confront is whether or not it’s the message itself that isn’t resonating with audiences or whether the message is even being noticed at all. The only way to figure out what the best methods of communication are within an organisation is to find out. Ask staff members, assess the impact different forms of communication have, and consider the ways people are most responsive to.
Remember that good communications will resonate with what is going on in an employee’s life right now. Strong communication that can grab and hold the attention of the intended audience is more important now than ever before.
If you would like more information about how to effectively communicate with your staff or would like to learn more about the benefits of an employee benefits platform, please do get in touch with us for a no-obligation conversation.
[1] Vantage Circle: https://blog.vantagecircle.com/benefits-of-employee-engagement/
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/statistics-why-effective-communication-important-/
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/70-employees-engaged-work-why-sandra-winnicka/
