As wage growth remains static and take-home pay is eroded further by inflation this year, reward and benefits look set to play an even more important role than ever in the remuneration of employees.

That was one of the findings of our recent research among a panel of reward and HR practitioners who shared their plans for improving performance and engagement in the year ahead.

The trouble is that in many organisations, this important investment is often overlooked by employees who are simply unaware of what their employer is offering. With this poor communication representing the single most important barrier to improving the outcomes from the investment in benefits and reward, it is also the single most issue for organisations to overcome.

So how should your organisation be thinking about tackling this in the year ahead? Based on our research and follow-up conversations with practitioners in the past weeks, five dominant themes emerged.

1)      Smart engagement: data is important in informing benefits and reward propositions but so too is talking and listening to employees about what they want and why they want it. These conversations are the starting point for better engagement in reward and need be core to benefits delivery.

 

2)      Working with managers: many benefits can help managers support employees in their teams when problems arise. The problem is that while organisations take time to communicate benefits to employees, they fail to talk to managers about how they can be used to resolve these problems. Organisations should focus on ways of ensuring managers act as a key channel for signposting benefits support available.

 

3)      Peer-to-peer communication: The most powerful advocates for your benefits and reward are the employees who use them. They can point out how they work and play role in demystifying new benefits when you introduce them. Think about how you can use employee champions to strengthen benefits communication.

 

4)      Simplifying communication: Perhaps the quickest win for many organisations in benefits communication is to move from policy-based communication to giving a more simple explanation of what is available. Illustrations, infographics and interactive tools can be used to support benefits communications and move away from wordy, text based approaches.

 

5)      Get the timing right: Well-timed campaigns which tie into seasonal themes or national awareness weeks ensure that benefits activity links to the agenda in the outside world. They can also provide much-needed platforms to talk about benefits like eyecare which often get forgotten.

Interestingly, the message from the practitioners around improving benefits communication is to focus less on trying to perfect the right channels to communicate – you’ll never get it right and too much experimenting with the latest channels can simply waste time – but more in ensuring the style of communication is one which will engage employees in the message.

So if you want your employees to listen rather than ignore what you are saying, keep it personal and relate what you say to what employees are interested in – it could make all the difference to how your people perceive the benefits and reward you offer.

Andy Philpott is sales and marketing director at Edenred – www.edenred.co.uk

twitter – @andy_philpott